


Feel You Here Forever

by prxntiss



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Get Together, Hurt/Comfort, Undercover, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, idk what to tag, they're in love don't tell me otherwise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:29:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prxntiss/pseuds/prxntiss
Summary: Emily Prentiss isn't one to fall in love easy. But now she's dating her supervisor for an undercover op.It had been a long week.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & David Rossi, Aaron Hotchner & Emily Prentiss, Aaron Hotchner & Jack Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner & Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Aaron Hotchner/Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan & Emily Prentiss, Emily Prentiss & David Rossi, Jack Hotchner & Emily Prentiss, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia & Aaron Hotchner, Penelope Garcia & Emily Prentiss
Comments: 138
Kudos: 194





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set late season 5, early season 6, so Haley is dead and Hotch has had time to grieve but Doyle hasn't jumped back into the picture yet
> 
> (I don't think they would actually send people undercover for this case and I don't know if there is a Norfolk field office cause I'm not American but for the sake of this story all of this happened lol)

Emily Prentiss’ apartment was dark, empty and cold when she got home. Pulling out her phone and keys from her pocket she dropped them on the counter before walking straight into the kitchen, pulling out some wine and pouring herself a glass. The red liquid swirled around the glass as she looked at it, her expression tired and blank.

The last case had been draining. Four year old Adalynn, six year old Kennedy and seven year old Alice, all kidnapped on the same night from Tulsa, in Oklahoma. Child abductions were always the hardest. They all had blue eyes and blonde hair, big smiles and seemed to be loved by everyone they knew. The unsub had been an average guy in his middle forties who’d lost a sister to an abusive dad and wanted to protect those girls by locking them in his basement, chained up, in the dark. They’d found the kids after Reid’s breakthrough and they’d rushed to the house, where Emily had promptly gotten a door slammed in her face and Morgan had been knocked out. Hotch, the local cop and Reid had rushed in, the cop grabbing the unsub and Reid grabbing the kids while Hotch helped a dizzy Emily up and shook Morgan’s shoulders to wake him. Her bleeding nose had stopped after a moment but Hotch’s fearful expression at seeing her so bloodied and dazed had stuck in her brain, after JJ came in and got Morgan and Hotch insisted on escorting Emily to the back of an ambulance to be inspected.

The kids had been okay, the most severe injury being a rope burn and cut on Alice, being the only one who had really tried to fight back. Morgan had a concussion but it was only mild. Everyone else was just tired, drained and wanted to go home.

Emily’s phone pinged as she sat down so she stood up and walked over to get it before sitting down again, curling up and trying to relax.

_ Aaron Hotchner:  _ you okay?

_ Emily Prentiss:  _ i’m still fine, hotch, calm down :)

_ Aaron Hotchner:  _ you could have a concussion or something.

_ Aaron Hotchner:  _ you’re my responsibility, I can’t not check up on you

_ Emily Prentiss:  _ i’m fine, i promise, go bug morgan

_ Emily Prentiss:  _ i’m the idiot that got hit by a door aha

_ Aaron Hotchner:  _ no, you walked through and he slammed it into you to try and knock you out

_ Emily Prentiss:  _ still. Goodnight hotch

_ Aaron Hotchner:  _ goodnight Emily.

* * *

Emily’s phone had pinged again at some ungodly hour in the morning (8:36am on closer inspection) and the agent had groaned as she reached out into the darkness of her loungeroom to grab it. It was probably just Hotch coming to bug her about making sure she was 200% alright. 

_ Jennifer Jareau:  _ we have a case, round table in 45 minutes.

Suddenly she’d realised that she would have preferred Hotch’s repetitive nagging to this.

“I’m not happy about the hour, JJ. Why can’t serial killers think about the people trying to catch them and be considerate?” Emily complained as she flopped down on the seat, but her tired eyes were the only indication of her lack of sleep.

“Thanks Prentiss, that really helps.” Morgan sarcastically said, a smile on his lips as he handed her coffee.

“Thanks.”

“What's the case, JJ? We’re all here now.” Reid spoke up, the bags under his eyes prominent.

“We’re just waiting for Agent Redfield.” Hotch said, reading through a case file that only he seemed to have.

“Agent who?”

“Good morning Agents, I’m Marly Redfield from the Norfolk Field Office in Virginia.” A woman stood in the door behind them, her black coat matching her dark hair. She looked a few years younger than Rossi, her hair pulled back in a neat bun. “I’m here to run the operation from the Hazel Beach end.”

“The operation?” Rossi asked, his eyebrow raised at her.

“Has it not been explained yet?” Redfield asked, raising an eyebrow back at him.

“I was just about to start. Please, have a seat. These are SSA’s Morgan, Prentiss, Hotchner, Rossi and Doctor Reid.” Redfield nodded as she took a seat, JJ clicking something on the screen. “So, sorry to get you up so early after the case, I know you’re all tired, I am too. But this is important so it’s key that we get everything sorted out as soon as possible.” Five photo’s appeared on the board of girls who looked around high school age. 

Redfield spoke up. “There have been five girls found dead in the past few months in Hazel Beach, Virginia. They’re all around 17-19, brunette, classified as the nerdier or smarter kids. They all attend Hazel Beach High and had normal family lives. Hallie Johnson was the first victim, found in January this year, then there was Micaela Talson, Lily Richards, Poppy Zina and Tiana Lewis. They were all asphyxiated and then their bodies were left in alleyways around the suburb. None of them were reported missing.”

“However, what is interesting is that the different m.o’s point to there being more than one unsub, theoretically a group. There is evidence of some sort of rituals being done to the body, burns, missing hair, cuts, drawings on the skin that all point to some sort of satanic group.” More photos appeared on the board behind JJ of the dead girls and close ups of the drawings and burns.”

“Is there any evidence of rape?” Reid asked, his brow furrowed.

“No. There are suspects however. Teachers at Hazel Beach High told the cops that there is a group of about five students who are always pouring over old rituals and witch hunting things, ways of banishing satan. They’re a mix matched group of kids, no particular personalities, and their ringleader is a twenty four year old ex student. They all live in the same apartment building. There is insubstantial evidence to arrest them, however.” JJ finished.

Redfield took over again. “The suspects: Alessio Thayer, 24. Ex-student, single but a player. He was expelled from Hazel Beach High when he was a senior for drug dealing. He works at the local convenience store now, minimum wage stuff, but smokes and hangs in dodgy alleyways in his spare time. He is, as you guys would say, an alpha male sort of type.”

Morgan nodded. “And the kids?”

“Lucas Mitchell, 18. Jock. Doesn’t listen in class, surfer boy. Failed 90% of his classes last semester. Lilliana Thomas, 17. More of the brains behind the operation, it seems. She was keen to get into a career with forensic science, according to her science teacher, but her interest seems to have dissipated this past year. Teagan Fay, 18. Pretty, popular. Sort of like a girl version of Lucas, personality wise. Justin Finchley, 16. The youngest, nerdy, his teachers didn’t really peg him as the type but it seems like he’s doing it to fit in. He sees Alessio and Lucas as the kind of people who will be able to protect him from other bullies. Finally Chloe Taw, 17, Lucas’ girlfriend, good grades, seems the most sensible and out of place.”

“Overall, they really are a mixed bunch but they’re hard to incriminate because their kills are irregular and they aren’t leaving any evidence behind. So this is where it gets interesting. Hotch, Emily, you’ll be going undercover.” JJ grinned.

Emily almost choked on her coffee. “Undercover- sorry what?” Hotch raised an eyebrow at JJ.

“The brass have decided that this will be a good opportunity to learn more about these kinds of groups, how they recruit, how they kill etc. So they’ve authorised two from the BAU to go down. Hotch, you’re going because you’re the most experienced as unit chief and Emily, well, you’re the only female profiler.” JJ shrugged apologetically.

“You’ll be undercover as a couple, Emilia Prior and Aaron Howington. It will probably be a very easy assignment, you’ll be in the apartment building and you have to try and get to know the kids and their parents to get an inside scoop.” Redfield handed out files, Hotch and Emily’s slightly thicker. "We can't be certain that it's them so my team will still be following other leads but it's a good idea to have someone undercover watching them most of the time. It also may not be all of them, it could be one of them, two of them, not necessarily all."

“Emilia Prior, born 21st April 1970 in Manhattan, NYC. Language teacher at Hazel Beach High, previously at St Luke’s College, NYC.” Emily looked up. “You do know I’m not a qualified teacher, right?”

“Yes, but it will only be for a short amount of time and I’m sure you’ll go great. And it's already set up so don’t try and say no, either of you.” JJ smiled. Emily pulled a face at her.

“Aaron Howington, born 9th September 1968, Washington DC. Lifeguard at Hazel Beach.” Hotch looked up, echoing Emily’s earlier expression. “You do know I have zero experience being a lifeguard, right?” JJ just rolled her eyes at that one.

Reid turned the page of Emily’s file, speed reading over her shoulder. “It says that you’ve been dating for a little over two years and that you met at a wedding, Emily’s college friend and Hotch’s cousin. Emily got drunk and Hotch dropped her home but she left her jacket in his car so they had to meet up for him to return it and kept in contact since then.”

“Aw, that’s such a cute story.” Garcia’s voice filled the room as her call connected. “Fear not, my lovelies, I have read your case file much like genius boy over there. Isn’t this exciting!”

Emily smiled at her and refused to look at Hotch. Yep, this was definitely a great plan to stop those tiny little seeds of feelings that had been growing inside her. Perfect.

“When do we start?” Hotch asked. “And how long will we be undercover? Because, you know. Jack.”

Emily bit her lip, ashamed that she’d been thinking about her own feelings rather than the fact that the small child she’d become so attached to was going to be left fatherless and motherless for who knows how long. “Jessica will be able to take him, right?”

Hotch must have seen the worry on Emily’s face because he nodded reassuringly. “I’m pretty sure. She’s always happy to take him when I’m away, don’t worry about it.” Emily nodded, and turned back to JJ.

“You will have to start next week, your apartment and possessions have been bought, your ideas and backstory completely soundproof and ready to go.” 

Garcia grinned. “I have personally handled your digital life, you have a facebook account going back the past three years which will soon have fair few photos of yourself and Hotch on it, showcasing how your relationship has developed over the past few years. You're welcome.”

“Thanks mama.” Morgan started but then the smirk on his face disappeared when he saw Agent Redfields confusion. “I mean… Miss Garcia.”

“You knew about this, Garcia?” Hotch asked.

His technical analyst seemed to shrink a bit under his harsh eye. “Sort of. I wasn’t told that it was you two, just that I had to organise a cover facebook account. I only found out two hours earlier than you two that it was actually you, Sir Hotch-alot.”   
“Just Hotch is fine, Garcia,” Hotch rolled his eyes, not missing the other look of confusion Agent Redfield was sporting.

“And we don’t know how long you’ll be under. A few months, maybe.” JJ shrugged apologetically.

Hotch nodded and then muttered under his breath, leaning in slightly so that only Emily could hear. “It doesn’t really seem like we have much of a choice in this, does it?”

Emily grinned. “Well, congratulations on becoming my boyfriend, I bear no responsibility for any PTSD you may suffer from after living with me.”

Hotch laughed, a rare sound that made Emily’s smile multiply tenfold. “Thanks Emilia.”

The butterflies in Emily's stomach got bigger. This was not where she thought this week would end.

* * *

So anyway, Emily  _ definitely  _ had no feelings for Aaron Hotchner.

So she felt absolutely nothing other than friendship as she watched him crouched down in front of his adorable son, a mirror image of him with blonde hair, and explained that he had to go away for a while.

“Again?” Jack asked, his voice quiet and sad. Emily’s heart broke.

"I'm sorry, Jack. It's for work, but I promise I'll be back as soon as possible." Hotch ruffled his son's hair.

"I'll miss you daddy." Jack hugged his dad tightly and Hotch kissed his forehead. 

"I'll miss you too. You're going to be staying with Auntie Jessie but I won't be able to call you, I'm sorry." Hotch said quietly.

"It's okay. You're a superhero, you have to keep working to save people." Jack whispered, but loudly enough that Emily could hear and smile.

"That's right, Jack Jack. And then when I'm back we'll go to the beach, okay? And get ice cream." Hotch grinned at his son.

"Yay!" Jack pulled back from the hug and jumped up and down a couple of times. "Can I get two scoops?"

"Sure, buddy." Hotch smiled.

Jack got quiet really quick though. "Daddy… is someone going to die?"

"What?"

"Last time you went away mummy died. Will Aunt Jessie die?" Jack looked down at the ground.

Hotch pushed his shock aside but Emily's mouth was hanging open. "No, Jack, of course no one will die. What happened with your mummy will never ever happen again, I promise. No one wants to hurt you or Jessie."

"Okay." Then he got quieter. "Will you protect Emmy?"

Both the boys seemed to have forgotten Emily was even in the room as Hotch replied. "I won't let anyone touch her, I promise. I’ll keep her safe.” There was something in his voice that Emily couldn’t quite identify, a certainty. Like he couldn’t stand the idea of anyone hurting her. She didn’t quite know what to do with that knowledge.

Jack nodded, his blonde hair flopping over his eyes. “Okay. I’ll miss you too, Emmy.” 

“I’ll miss you more, Jack Jack.” Emily crouched down behind Hotch as Jack ran over to her, throwing his arms around her. She held him tightly, her eyes meeting Hotch’s over the young boys shoulder. His expression was unreadable but a little sad as he watched her with his son. Dark hair and light hair. Emily was a motherly figure to Jack, Hotch knew that, the boy always talking to Emily at a million miles per second whenever he saw her. She’d taught him bits of Italian which Jack loved showing off to Rossi with. Just from looking at Emily, Hotch could tell that this assignment was going to do something to their relationship. He couldn’t like her that way, of course, she was his subordinate. But… yeah.

Emily could see in Hotch’s eyes that he needed a moment alone so she smiled faintly at him before lifting Jack up, the five year old weighing nothing, and tickling his side lightly to break up the sad moment. Jack laughed wildly, squirming in her arms. “Emmy!”

“Come on, handsome. Let's go steal some cheetos from JJ’s and then we can go find Penelope and she can let you play a game on her computers, okay? Your dad needs to work but then he’s going to take you to a cafe for lunch, isn’t that right, Hotch?” Emily grinned at Hotch and Jack looked around to see Hotch, glee written across his face.

“Thank you daddy!” Then he turned back to Emily. “Will Aunt Penelope let me use her special keyboard?”

Emily smiled at Hotch over Jack’s shoulder and he mouthed thanks, before sitting down and sighing. She bit her lip before ruffling his hair similar to how she might with Jack, trying not to linger on how soft it felt but instead on how to give him some support with a child in her arms. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he must be feeling, having to leave Jack again.

They were stuck in this boat together so they might as well get used to it.


	2. Part 2

Hazel Beach was a small town, right on the beach. It had one public high school and primary school, a decent population, a surf lifesaving club, a few restaurants and pubs and a carnival down by the pier. People moved in groups around the town, teenagers sticking to crowded areas, presumably due to the threat of a killer on the loose. It was such a small town to experience such a thing.

Emily’s heels clicked on the concrete as she climbed out of the passenger seat, her top and shorts looking remarkably casual compared to her normal attire. A warm breeze blew as she walked up to Hotch who stood on the sidewalk, his jeans and t-shirt making him look younger than how she normally saw him.

“You ready?” she asked, smiling to cover up her nerves. It had been a week since JJ had told them about the operation and they were about to start… dating, so to speak. Next time someone told Emily that her life could turn around in just a week, she wasn’t going to laugh.

“Yeah. Are you?” Hotch asked back as they walked towards the apartment building, an oldish one about a ten-minute walk from the beach with six floors and a foyer, upper-middle-class.

Emily nodded, her eyes scanning around them. She had experience going undercover but no one on the team knew that. And as far as she was concerned, they would never find out about Lauren Reynolds. “Well, Hotch?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad it’s you.” Emily blurted out. When she realised what she said, she backtracked. “I mean, Morgan would annoy me senseless and Reid would be too terrified doing anything.”

Hotch smirked slightly. “Sure. After you.” he held the door open and she walked into the cool foyer, looping her arm through his boldly as they walked up to the lady standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hi! I’m Louise Mitchell, I live in apartment 2C with my husband and three kids. You’re the couple interested in renting apartment 3A, right?”

“Yep, that’s us.” Emily smiled widely, leaning against Hotch.

“I’m Aaron Howington and this is my girlfriend Emilia Prior. Nice to meet you.” Hotch shook her hand.

“Well, apparently you’ve already started renting but you couldn’t get any time off to visit?” Lousie asked, brushing her black hair back from her face. 

Emily nodded. “We lived in New York and couldn’t get any time to come and down, but this apartment looks perfect from the photos we’ve seen.”

They hadn’t actually seen any photos.

“Great. It is a lovely apartment with a view of the beach. I’ll show you up there and then leave you to it.” Louise turned around and quickly walked up the stairs.

Emily and Hotch hurried to catch up. “Thank you. The moving van will be here half an hour or so." Emily smiled.

"No problem, Emilia." She said curtly.

Emily pulled a face at that and Hotch rolled his eyes at her reaction.

The apartment building seemed normal enough. It was quiet, one or two people drifted in and out of the elevator, who knows why Louise chose for them to take the _stairs._ The hallways were white, the carpet grey, the doors numbered carefully in gold. 3A was right next to the stairway, and Louise opened the door with a key that she then handed to Hotch.

"Here, Aaron. Emilia, I'll go downstairs and get you the other key, feel free to have a look around." Louise left the room without another word, just a nod.

Emily trailed her fingertips along the cabinet in the main room, turning to Hotch. "' _Feel free to have a look around'"_ she quoted sarcastically after the door had closed, rolling her eyes. "Geez, you'd think that she owned the place."

Hotch smiled slightly. That was an achievement in itself, getting him to smile. "It doesn't take much to profile that she runs this building."

"I daresay she's really annoyed when the teens sneak out. Well, at least my mum always was." Emily smirked.

"You snuck out a lot as a teen?" Hotch raised his eyebrows at her.

Emily raised hers back. "You didn't?"

"I went to boarding school, the opportunity didn't exactly present itself often." Hotch turned around to observe the room.

"Well, I guess you only live once, so I hope that opportunity presents itself for you." Emily laughed, a pretty, delicate laugh that made Hotch turn around to look at her for a second before he averted his gaze. Emily didn't notice, moving deeper into the apartment. 

The front door opened up into the kitchen and living room, and then a hallway led off to the bathroom and bedroom. The kitchen was modern and open, marble benchtops and red stools attached to the island. The living room had a tv, lounge and armchair with a coffee table. And a rug. It was cosy. Then there was a balcony looking towards the beach, the sunrises would be gorgeous from there. The bathroom was simple but the single bedroom made Emily swallow awkwardly, quickly leaving when Hotch followed her to have a look in.

It was a one-bedroom apartment. Of course, it was. That thought hadn't even crossed Emily's mind until then. They could take turns on the lounge, it didn't look that uncomfortable. Hotch seemed to have realised that as well when he came out of the bedroom as he made eye contact with her briefly before looking at the lounge. "You can have the bed."

"We can share it." Emily quickly said. He spent enough time falling asleep at his desk or in bad places at home while doing work, he deserved this like a little holiday. She pulled a face when she realised that had come out wrong. "I mean. We can take turns."

Hotch nodded slightly. "Okay. Maybe."

"That's a yes, Mr Hotchner." Emily deflected with humour, grinning slightly to try and hide the nerves she was feeling. She cleared her throat and turned back to the balcony. "There's a nice view from here."

"Yeah. Jack would love this." He muttered.

Emily turned back to him. "I'm sorry. Jack doesn't deserve this."

"I'm a terrible dad." He said quietly.

Emily flinched. "No, you're not. You're not, I promise. Jack loves you." She'd never heard him voice his insecurities like this. She knew from the way Jack acted that his dad meant everything to him.

"Yeah maybe." There was a knock on the door and Hotch gratefully turned around, leaving Emily staring at his back.

"Thanks, Louise." He said as he took the spare key she handed him. He handed it to Emily who stood behind him, ignoring the spark as their hands touched for a split second. Cause she wouldn’t have felt it.

“A moving van just pulled up downstairs, it’s probably yours so I should leave you two to it.” Lousie headed towards the door.

“Typical, leaves before the hard work,” Emily rolled her eyes and muttered that behind him. Hotch tried not to laugh. She spoke up louder. “Thank you so much, Louise, for showing us up here. Please, feel free to come around anytime.” They could probably get lots of information out of Louise, she seemed like the type who would know everything about everyone in this apartment.

“Thank you, Emilia. I should tell you two that there is going to be a gathering this weekend in the foyer downstairs, we usually have every couple of months, you know, to get a sense of community going. Feel free to come along, it’s formal but not too formal. Everyone from the apartment will be there, the kids and everyone so it will be a good opportunity to get to know everyone.” Louise turned back to look at them.

Both Hotch and Emily saw that opportunity for what it could be. “Ho- Aaron and I will definitely try to be there, thank you.” 

“But we should get downstairs, we’ll see you later.” Aaron wrapped his arm around Emily’s shoulders, trying to sell the idea of them as a couple. If only.

Louise said her goodbyes and left. Hotch quickly dropped his arm. “So we should, uh, probably go and unpack.” Hotch stumbled.

Emily nodded. “Well, I moved enough as a child to be an expert at this by now.” she joked, moving towards the door.

“Is that so?” Hotch followed her, locking the door behind him.

“Uh-huh. We will be unpacked in about twenty minutes the way I do it.” Emily tossed a grin over her shoulder.

“I’ll bet.”

* * *

_Three hours later_

“Hotch! Where on earth does this thingy go?” Emily shouted from where she sat on the kitchen bench, sorting out a box of new kitchen utensils.

“Just put it in the top drawer,” Hotch called out from the bedroom. The top drawer: their new place for cramming all the things that they a) didn’t know what they were, b) had never ever used and would never use and c) couldn’t figure out which drawer it should go in. It was getting pretty full by this stage. They’d unpacked photos, books, Emily had done her clothes, Hotch was doing his, toiletries, other random relics and certificates to make the house look lived in. For the amount of effort that they were going to to make them look like a real couple, Emily found herself half hoping that they’d stay this couple for ages.

“Cool. And I’m done in the kitchen.” Emily jumped down, walking down the hallway to Hotch, soft socks on floorboards. She leaned against the doorframe, twirling her hair around her finger as she watched him flick through a magazine. He jumped when he realised she was there, closing the magazine and obediently moving back to the stack of clothes he was meant to be sorting. Emily rolled her eyes affectionately.

“What do you want for dinner? We can get Italian, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Thai…” Emily trailed off when she noticed him staring at her with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. “What?”

He looked good, some far off part of her noticed, in jeans and a red polo shirt. Relaxed. “Will you be cooking any of this?”

“Will you be cooking?” Emily shot back, scowling.

“I’m a terrible cook. You lived in Italy.” Hotch offered as an explanation.

Emily poked her tongue out at him. “Doesn’t mean that there is any hope for me being a master chef. Just ask Dave.”

“JJ said you can cook.”

“When on earth did that come up in conversation?” Emily walked over and sat down beside him on the bed.

He turned to look at her. “She said that you’d be making us homemade meals.” he grinned.

Emily gaped. “I will get her back for that.” Hotch shook his head in exasperation. “So you really can’t cook?”

“So _you_ really can’t cook?”

“I can sort of cook but I'm too tired. But I’m tired tonight. How about you?”

“Well...does mac and cheese count? Cause that’s my specialty.”

“Get in that kitchen, Agent Hotchner, and stop slacking in here. I expect extra bacon.” He mock glared at her as she dragged his arm to pull him out of the room, her head thrown back as she laughed.

“I’ll teach you my secret.” He said when they got to the kitchen.

“Mhmm.” Emily hummed.

Hotch leaned close to whisper in her ear. She couldn’t help but hold her breath. “Cheese. Butter. Pasta.”

She shoved him back, her grin big and mirroring him. “You jerk! That’s not a secret, that’s literally the plainest three ingredients!”

“Why complicate perfection?” he teased. She liked seeing this side of him. A lot. “Cook the pasta over there, I think we have some. I’ll work on the rest of it.”

Emily snorted. “What rest of it? You literally have to grate some cheese.”

“Shut up.” he laughed.

“Yes Sir.” Emily saluted, army style. Hotch rolled his eyes and started to grate the cheese.

* * *

The sun was setting by the time their dinner was ready. Emily scooped it into two bowls and walked outside, sitting on one of the chairs out there and watching the sunset. Yellows, oranges and then red as the last embers disappeared behind the horizon. The food was hot and the night air was warm, the lull in conversation comfortable as they stared out at the town. A few people played at the beach, surfing against the starry night.

“Did you ever surf?”

“No, did you?”

“No, but learning would be cool.”

“Jack wants to learn, I told him when he’s older.”

Emily grinned, poking her fork in his direction as she swallowed. “Don’t let Garcia hear or she’ll buy him a surfboard.”

“She’d buy him a beach,” Hotch deadpanned.

“I don’t doubt that.” She laughed. 

Quiet again.

“How many countries have you lived in?” 

“I love how this has turned into a game of twenty one questions.” 

“Just answer the question,” 

Soft laughter. “Too many to count. Italy, America, England, France. Ukraine. Places in the Middle East. I went to Russia a lot but never lived there.”

Hotch nodded. Quiet pause. “So how many languages do you speak?”

“This is your last question, I’m too tired. English, Italian, Spanish, Russian, although I’m truly not very good at it, Arabic, French and Greek.”

“Wow.”

“Yep. If we’re asking questions, why’d you go to boarding school?”

“The schools in the town I grew up in were pretty average. My dad thought I was a bad influence on Sean.” Hotch put his bowl down as he finished eating, full.

“Sean did tell a story about how you got caught skipping school once. For a girl.” Emily curled up, grinning at him.

“He did what?!” Hotch exclaimed.

“Sean told me not to tell you so… I guess you’ll have to figure out what he said yourself.” Emily winked at him.

“Did Sean tell many stories about me? And when?” Hotch gaped.

“Oh, he told us loads. That time that we went to that bar in New York, what did you think he was telling Garcia, JJ and I?” Emily asked.

“I don’t know, heroic stories of him?”

“No, they were all embarrassing stories of you,” Emily chuckled.

“Great,” Hotch said dryly.

Emily smiled. After a moment she spoke up again. “This won’t be terrible will it?”

“No. I don’t think it will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will have more Hotchniss fluff I promise :)


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whattt... two updates in one week? Don't get used to this :)
> 
> I kinda hate this chapter but whatever

Hotch had lived with Haley for a long time. They’d met in high school, started dating in their senior year, gotten married two years after that. They both preferred a quiet night in then a social event with formal dresses and faked appearances. Haley barely ever wore makeup. 

Hotch supposed that was why he was so surprised by how long it took Emily to get ready that night. He watched as she expertly applied a light layer of eyeshadow and ran some lipstick over her lips. She curled her hair with precision and ease. The black dress she wore was simple but tasteful, the hem reaching just above her knees and the neckline complete with a keyhole that completely distracted the eye. Which was bad news for Hotch.

“Are you ready yet?” He asked, poking his head into the bedroom. He’d left after she’d threatened to curl his hair into ringlets with the curling iron unless he’d stop distracting her. 

She looked up at him and he forced himself to breath. She looked… effortlessly beautiful. It would be very distracting and a miracle if he actually managed to remember anyone’s name. Let alone manage to profile anyone at all.

She nodded quickly. “Yep. One sec…” she grabbed her purse and put her phone, lipstick and other assorted items in it. “Okay. Ready now. What time is it?”

Hotch looked at his wrist, glad for the distraction. “Um… it’s ten to six. Perfect timing.”

Emily nodded again. "Alright. Now, remember,” she leaned forward and whispered to him. He could smell her perfume, a scent that was so completely her. “I’m Emilia, and you’re in love with me.” a smile played on her lips.

Somehow, Hotch thought as he followed her out of the apartment, there was one part of that which wouldn’t be hard to pretend.

* * *

Emily looked at him once nervously as they stood out the front of the room. Her smile was quick. “Let’s get it going then, Hotchner.”

Hotch nodded. “Gossip as much as you do at work and we won’t have a problem.” her elbow dug into his ribs before her hand slipped into his and she pushed the door open.

Her hand in his threw him off for a second but it didn’t show on his face. He was an expert at hiding his emotions. Whether that was good or not, who knew.

“Emilia! Aaron! Come in.” Louise stood in the middle of the room, her dark hair elegantly in a low bun. Her dress was dark blue and formal and her heels clicked across the floor as she moved towards them. 

“Hi, Louise.” Emily politely said, smiling at the older woman.

“Good evening. It’s always so great to get new neighbours. How are you finding Hazel Beach?” She asked, her gaze intent. She reminded Hotch of one of those ladies from his home town who knew everything about everyone and always had their nose in other people's business.

“The people here are really nice and it’s a beautiful suburb.” Emily’s tone was polite, the one she used when talking to Strauss or really any of her superiors.

“That’s good. Well,” Louise grabbed three glasses of champagne off a nearby waiter. Hotch tried to hide his surprise at how formal this event was. He felt substantially underdressed in his jeans and dress shirt. “To many more years in Hazel Beach and to a long and loving relationship for you two!” She raised her glass in a toast.

Emily and Hotch tapped their glasses on hers and then raised them to their lips. Neither of them actually drank the alcohol though. “Yes, many loving years.” Hotch echoed her. He felt like he had to contribute something to this. Emily was the expert though, but he could feel the way her hand tensed in his when she talked to Louise.

“Let’s go introduce you to everyone else, then.” Louise turned away and walked over to a group of adults in the corner. Emily had met most of the kids at the school yesterday when she'd started teaching, replacing the old languages teacher who had gone on holidays. She hadn't spoken to them long enough to gain a profile on them though.

Hotch squeezed Emily’s hand as they followed her. “You’re doing great.” He whispered.

She nodded. “I went to enough diplomatic dinners growing up. I always hated the fake interest people would show. Here I am doing it though.” she shrugged, turning on a big smile as they approached the group.

“It’s so great to meet you, I’m Juliet and this is my husband of eighteen years, Mario.” A woman with dark brown hair smiled at them. She had wrinkles around her eyes and dimples when she smiled. Mario had similar hair and olive skin, a grey streak running through the front of his hair. “We live on the floor above you with our daughter Lilliana. I understand that you’re teaching at the high school?”

“Yes. I’m Emilia and this is my boyfriend Aaron. We’re very happy to be moving here. I teach languages, French and Italian, at the high school. I met Lilliana yesterday, she seems like a sweet girl.” Emily took another fake sip of the champagne but she looked like she could really do with actually drinking it. Hotch struggled to not laugh.

“Ah, si. Come sta?” Mario asked Emily, a smile in the corner of his mouth.

“Molto bene, grazie. E tu?” Emily responded. Hotch tried not to look too confused.

“Così così, grazie. Piacere, signorina.”

“E tu.” Emily said again.

“Again for the rest of us?” Juliet asked, laughing softly.

“I just asked how she was. Now, you will keep us up to date on how Lilliana is going, si? Her grandparents are very keen for her to learn the language of her country.” Mario had a thick Italian accent and kind eyes.

“Of course. She seems talented, if she studies and consistently pays attention in class, I’m sure she’ll pass with flying colours.” Emily responded, racking her brains for how to sound like a real teacher.

Juliet nodded. “She knows how much it means to her grandparents so I’m sure she won’t let them down.” Emily nodded, thinking about how little Lilliana actually seemed to care in class. “How about you Aaron? What do you do?”

“I’m a lifeguard down by the beach. It’s a good job, I have lots of time to spend with my beautiful girlfriend.” Yeah right, he wished. He plastered on a smile though, grinning down at Emily.

Emily blushed, dropping her hand in mock horror. “Aaron! You’re such a flirt.”

Juliet and Mario smiled but Louise seemed… well, her expression was blank but Hotch noticed the way her fingers twisted her wedding ring around her finger. A nervous tick? Or maybe her marriage wasn’t as happy as her outward approach and her Facebook would suggest.

“You two seem good together.” Juliet winked at Emily. “He’s a catch, don’t let him go,” she whispered.

Emily’s hand crept to her hair and she twirled a lock around her finger. “I don’t want to.” she murmured, looking everywhere but at Hotch. His gaze was fixed firmly on her though.

Louise cleared her throat. “Anyway, plenty of people to meet, not enough time. Let’s get moving.”

Emily smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, but we’ll see you around.”

“It was great to meet you,” Hotch added. Emily nodded.

“If you ever need anything, we’re just upstairs and happy to help,” Juliet added, her smile honest.

“Thank you.” Hotch nodded to them as he followed Louise. “Did you notice-”

“The ring? Yep,” Emily muttered. “Garcia will have to dig into that.” Louise abruptly stopped walking and Emily would have walked straight into her back if Hotch hadn’t grabbed her arms. “Thanks.” she murmured.

“No problem.”

“This is Richard and Sarah, and their youngest children, Kyle and Mia. They both attend the middle school on the other side of the town.” Richard and Sarah Fay, parents of Teagan. He was a builder and she was a stay at home mum. Both from South Carolina. The entire family were a spitting image of each other, all of them with the same dull brown hair, tan skin and hazel eyes. It struck Emily how different Teagan looked, with pale skin, blue eyes and blonde hair. There potentially could be something there.

“Hi.” Emily started.

“I’m Aaron and this is my girlfriend, Emilia. We’re from New York.” Hotch spoke up. This family seemed less keen to talk though. 

“Nice to meet you.” Richard nodded in acknowledgment. Sarah shot a small smile. Mia, she couldn’t have been more than twelve, picked at her dress and glared at her similarly aged brother.

“It’s a nice neighbourhood.” Sarah offered up after a moment.

Emily nodded. “Yeah, it seems very nice.”

“There is a carnival. Down by the pier.” Kyle said. Mia kicked his shin. “I was just telling them-”

“Hi! Are you two the new couple downstairs?” A young woman with fine blonde hair stood behind them, her pink dress contrasting against her husband’s black tie. “I’m Joey and that’s Chris, we have one daughter, Chloe. Chloe, sweetie, come over here for a moment.”

A blonde girl appeared from the corner of the room and waved, a grin lighting up her face as she saw Emily. “Hi, Miss Prior!”

“Hi, Chloe. I like your dress.” Emily grinned back.

“Thanks, Lucas bought it for me.” Lucas, son of Louise and her husband Terry, long time boyfriend of Chloe. “Is this your boyfriend, Miss? He’s hot.” Chloe said bluntly.

Joey almost choked on her champagne. If Hotch had been drinking anything, he could almost certainly guarantee a similar response. “Chloe! Manners.” 

“Sorry, mum. I’m just complimenting Miss on her taste in men.” Chloe shrugged. Her blonde hair was neat and she actually seemed like she wanted to be here. Emily couldn’t exactly say the same for herself.

“Still, you’re just embarrassing them.” Chris scolded her lightly, but Chloe pouted at him and it was clear that she was the apple in her father’s eye.

“So, Emilia, if you’re going to be living a few floors down, I don’t suppose you’d be interested in helping Chloe extra with her French? We’ll pay you of course.” Joey asked, brushing her own blonde hair back as she sipped her champagne.

“Yeah. I really like learning French but it doesn’t really come naturally.” Chloe shrugged.

“Um, yeah. Maybe once or twice a fortnight after school? I like being able to spend my weekends with Aaron, getting to know the neighbourhood.” Emily created on the spot. She really would like to spend time with Aaron though.

“Of course, we wouldn’t want to take up too much of your time. Just when you’re free.” Chris said. “What’s it like being a lifeguard, Aaron? I used to do it sometimes in the holidays when I was a teenager, but being a full-time lifeguard seems like a lot of work.” he laughed.

Hotch joined in. “It is, but it's also relaxing and the hours are flexible."

"That's good. I'll have to recommend that you come to my cafe at some point. We're just at the south end of the beach. For you, everything is half price." Chris grinned.

"He doesn't even give me half price." Chloe rolled her eyes.

Louise turned around from talking to Teagan's family. "I have to go and make sure all the food is ready. Just talk around, enjoy." She shot them a curt smile before disappearing. The room was small but crowded, loud music played.

Teagan's family disappeared at some stage while they talked to Chris, Chloe and Joey. They seemed like the most normal family there but soon enough Emily found herself hungry. She glanced up at Hotch who promptly excused them, promising to pop up for dinner at some stage.

"Are you sure I can't tempt you with some champagne?" Hotch joked as Emily wandered over to a pot plant in the corner of the room. Glancing over her shoulder, she subtly poured out most of the glass and then handed it to Hotch, taking his and tipping it out as well.

"Shut up. I would kill for some wine right about now." Emily groaned. Hotch smirked at her.

"Gotta work, Prentiss," Hotch muttered.

"Sssh!" She glanced over her shoulder again. "What if someone had heard you?!"

"I was being careful." 

"Well, you're the one who's going to get in more trouble if our cover is blown. Strauss will kill you." Emily poked her tongue out at him and then smoothed down her dress. "I hate parties like this. Can we go yet?"

"I would have thought you would have been used to biding your time at pointless events." Hotch shrugged, filling their glasses with water.

Emily drank hers quickly. "I can still taste the remnants of the champagne." She joked. "Thanks. And yes, but it's not like I have to enjoy it."

Hotch rolled his eyes at her, a faint smile on his lips. Emily couldn't help but feel happy that she'd made him smile. He did it so infrequently. He noticed her watching him and shot her a look of confusion, the smile still there. “What?”

She quickly drank some more water, hiding her face. “Nothing.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Sure. Okay, sit down, I’m going to go get some food. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Emily pouted. “Hey, I can come. Why do I have to sit down?”

“You keep shifting your weight and usually you complain about wearing heels because they give you blisters so I’m guessing they’re annoying you now.” Hotch profiled.

Emily rolled her eyes at him, sitting down. “You better get me a brownie or two.” He ignored her, walking off with an exasperated but… dare she say affectionate expression on his face.

Emily sipped on her water, wondering whether she could tip it out and fill it with wine before Hotch got back. He'd probably notice though. She sighed before looking over to her partner. He'd somehow gotten roped into a conversation with a younger couple, the woman with dark red hair and the man with blonde hair. She held a child in her arms, a tiny kid with a few blonde strands of hair covering his face. Emily recognised them as Marcus and Lyra Finchley, Justin's parents, and their two-year-old son Tim. Hotch was nodding on politely, but his eyes kept straying to Tim. He probably missed Jack, that boy was a spitting image of him. She would hate to spend so much away from her own child. 

Emily bent down to adjust her heels. Hotch was right, she hated strappy heels like the type you'd wear to a party. The only heels she'd willingly wear were heeled boots. Hotch was also right about the blister. Emily poked it and winced.

"I can get you a band-aid if you want." A voice next to her said. Emily's head jerked up. Alessio stood there, his cocky grin the exact same as the one in the photo sitting in the files upstairs. Emily swallowed.

"No, it will be fine. I'm Emilia." Emily introduced herself.

"Alessio. I'm the bachelor around here." He flirted, sitting next to her. Emily forced herself to smile. Flirt back. No, don't. Maybe she should. It might get him to talk. But, in all intents and purposes, she was taken. Still… a little flirting might keep him there. Whatever.

Emily fake laughed. "I just moved in upstairs with my boyfriend." 

"Ooh, a boyfriend. I won't tell if you won't." He winked. Emily swallowed and plastered a smile on.

"I'm sure you won't." She leaned in a bit, barely noticeable to anyone but Alessio's grin got wider.

"You know I won't. You have a very pretty face," he cooed, his eyes scanning her face. She bit her lip. "And an even better body." His eyes dipped lower.

She resisted the urge to cover herself. "Thank you." She whispered.

His eyes stared at her chest for another long minute before returning to her face. She forced herself to play a flirty smile on her lips. "Anytime at all that your  _ boyfriend _ is away, my apartment is open for visits." His face seemed to have moved closer to hers, and his hand had found her thigh, plenty higher than she would ever, ever want a man like Alessio to be. No one seemed to notice, the room moving on around them. His eyes stared into hers, unblinking, a smirk clear on her face. She stared back, her mind frantically trying to think of how to say no without pushing him away. She had to make a good impression, he was the main suspect. He had to trust her.

"Of course." She breathed out slowly. A hand found her waist and she froze again, but this one was different.

"Emilia," another voice was in her ear and she subconsciously leaned back towards it. A hand found hers and pulled her up. She staggered against Hotch, her emotions held behind a mask. His hand wrapped around her waist possessively and he pulled her back against her, away from Alessio. "Hello, I'm Aaron. The boyfriend." Emily heard some protectiveness in that, more than just acting.

Alessio didn't seem fazed by the sudden disappearance of his prey. "Well hello there." He didn't bother introducing himself.

"We should be going. Plenty of people to meet." Hotch shrugged apologetically.

Emily nodded. "It was... nice to meet you." 

"Nice to meet you too, Emilia." He let her name roll off her tongue, a sly grin clear before sauntering away.

Emily sighed in relief as he left and then rested her head back against Hotch's chest for a moment, her eyes shut while he rubbed her hip slightly with his thumb. It calmed her down. Then, when she realised what she was doing, she stood up quickly and spun around to face him.

"Um… hi. Sorry." Emily muttered, flustered.

"Hi." Hotch echoed, his eyes on her. "You okay?"

"Yep, but far out, I have not been hit on that strongly in a  _ long  _ time." She chuckled lightly.

Hotch smiled for a second before it was gone. "What did he say?"

"Uh, he essentially just said that he's keen to hook up as soon as you are gone." Emily looked away, embarrassed.

Hotch was quiet for a moment. "Don't do it."

Emily gawked at him. "Of course, cause I definitely wanted to." She sarcastically rolled her eyes.

He shot her a look. "You know what I mean." 

She bit her lip and nodded. "Yeah. Let's go talk to some more suspects and then we can go have a threeway with Alessio." 

Hotch's hand strayed to her waist again, protectively holding him close to her. She couldn't help but notice that he was more protective than Morgan or any of the other guys were. They started walking over to another few adults lining the walls. He spoke up again, murmuring. "I don't think I was invited." Emily could hear his smile.

She elbowed him and smirked. "I'm sure I could use my powers of seduction to get you there." He laughed, soft and low. She turned slightly to look back at him. "You owe me some brownies."

He rolled his eyes, pushing her in the direction of one of the older apartment dwellers, seventy-year-old Miriam. "Keep dreaming."

* * *

Hotch felt the bed dip down beside him as Emily jumped on. Her hair was brushed and her old cotton pyjamas, one of the only things that weren't brand new, were oversized and comfy. He looked over at her from where he was updating their report on the laptop.

She rolled her eyes. "Relax, I'm going to sleep on the lounge. It's just cold out there, who on earth puts the only heater in the bedroom?" 

"Probably normal couples. I can sleep out there if you want." Hotch offered.

Emily shook her head. "No. You've had it the last few nights, it's my turn. Anyway, I also just wanted to talk over what we know so far for the case." She curled up on her side, looking up at him.

She looked… ridiculously cute. God damn it. "Um, well, the kids are a fairly mixed range. Chloe, Justin, they're good kids. Lilliana seems okay. Teagan seems like an obnoxious "popular" girl. Lucas is a jock, enough said. And then there is Alessio." Emily rolled her eyes.

"I don't like him."

"Yeah, well neither do I so no arguments here."

"I guess…" Hotch tried to think. "I think that Alessio is manipulating the kids somehow. He must have some sort of twisted way to convince them that what they are doing isn’t wrong. He's the alpha male."

"Exactly." Emily yawned. "I think that Chloe may be doing it for Lucas. And I think that Justin joined because he just wanted to fit in. The other teachers mentioned that he's not very popular."

"That doesn't exactly surprise me," Hotch muttered. There was a comfortable lull in conversation as they both thought about possible motives and ways that the kids could have gotten the bodies and dumped them without being spotted. After a while, Hotch spoke up again. "Maybe Lucas or Alessio are seducing the victims that way they could trick the girls into following them into empty places. Once they're there, they get ambushed by the rest of the group and killed. Then they just have to wait until it's dark and move them to an alleyway. Or maybe the actual murders happen in the alleyways. Notice that all of the victims were blonde-haired girls from the high school. Maybe that's linked to the stressor, maybe Alessio, the alpha male, was dumped by a similar-looking girl. That could cause him to want to-" he broke off as he looked across to Emily.

Her head rested against one of her arms, her eyes closed and her breathing even. He could see the remnants of her waterproof mascara (the only acceptable type of mascara, according to Garcia) but other than that all her makeup was gone. Usually, he saw her with at least a bit of makeup, save the occasion where he'd knocked on her hotel room at midnight to bring her back to a case. It made her look younger, her freckles scattering her cheeks. Her hair covered one of her eyes and Hotch couldn't help but brush it back gently. She sighed warmly, snuggling down into the covers.

He'd go out onto the lounge tonight, give her the bed, just as soon as he finished this report. He turned back to the laptop but found his gaze drifting back to her a moment later.

She was beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Italian is a bit rusty so sorry for any mistakes!


	4. Part 4

The first thing that Emily smelt when she woke up was coffee, eggs and bacon. Her eyes slowly opened and a smile reached her lips. She yawned, stretching, and then sat up, adjusting the covers across her chest and running a hand through her hair. Soft light streamed through the window and a warm summers breeze blew through. The other side of the bed was empty and the covers were pulled straight. A small part of Emily’s brain wondered where Hotch had slept the previous night. He’d still been on the laptop beside her when she’d fallen asleep. Maybe he’d finished up and slept on the lounge. Part of her hoped that he hadn’t, that lounge wasn’t uncomfortable but it wasn’t exactly comfortable either.

Emily stretched again and reached for the glass of water beside her, taking a sip. It was Sunday. Thank goodness. School weeks were long. She sat up and pulled herself out of her bed, her half-asleep brain following the scent of food and coffee towards their main room. The apartment really was tiny but somewhere along the way it had turned from being an empty apartment filled with lies to somewhere cosy. A home. 

Hotch’s back was to her when she entered the kitchen. She peered at the two coffees on the counter. One black, one white. She picked up the white one and took a sip, the caffeine waking her up. “Good morning,” she said into the quiet room.

Hotch turned around to look at her. “Morning. Did you sleep well?” He asked, expertly moving the eggs onto the bread. A distant memory of Haley joking years ago about how eggs were the only food that Hotch could cook sparked at the back of her brain. She didn’t really want to think about Haley though. 

So instead she nodded. “Yeah. Did you?”

“Yeah. Sorry, I fell asleep in front of the laptop. I was going to move to the lounge though.” Hotch mumbled, embarrassed.

Emily nodded again, slowly, as she took the plates he handed her and sat down at the table. “It’s okay. I don't mind sharing the bed. I mean, I don’t know about you, but that lounge is fairly uncomfortable.” she laughed softly, ignoring the nerves in her stomach.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Hotch responded, sitting down across from her.

“You won’t. Don’t worry about it.” She avoided his eyes when she answered.

“If you’re sure. Eat quickly though, you slept in so Garcia and the rest of the team are expecting us to call them in half an hour.” Hotch added, eating a piece of bacon off his plate.

Emily pulled a face. “Ugh. I feel hungover but I don’t even think I remember drinking anything. Did I drink something last night?”

Hotch shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Alessio probably drugged me to try and get me to sleep with him,” she muttered, cutting her eggs with a shrug.

Hotch laughed halfheartedly. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

"Same… thanks for making breakfast by the way. And coffee. And for making my coffee the way I like it, not as dark and black as yours." She grinned at him.

“Happy to help you.” he joked. She liked seeing this side of him. It was so… warm.

They continued with breakfast and then Emily disappeared into the bedroom to get changed. Walking back out, Hotch had grabbed the laptop and put it on the coffee table and was currently brushing his teeth in the bathroom. Emily sat down and crossed her legs, her eyes unconsciously finding Hotch and watching him. His presence was calming. She was jerked out of her thoughts by a loud voice interrupting her.

"You're staring, Princess." Morgan's teasing voice came out of the speakers. Penelope laughed.

"Shut up. No, I'm not." Emily blushed dark red, turning to face the computer. The rest of the team sat around the round table at the BAU. JJ was standing at the back while Penelope, Morgan and Rossi sat around it.

"No point denying it, Em. We all saw." JJ grinned.

"Yeah, everyone saw you staring at-" Rossi started before Emily cut him off.

"Ssh. Shut up!" Emily hissed as Hotch walked into the room. He peered at the laptop. 

"Hey, guys, what's up?" He sat down on the lounge beside her.

"Why don't you ask Emily?" Rossi smirked.

"It's nothing." Emily hastily. Hotch looked at her with slight confusion for a moment before turning back to the laptop. Moving her hand out of Hotch's view she flipped Rossi off through the screen.

Morgan laughed. "Okay, moving on from Emily's fascination with-"

"Nah uh, don't finish that sentence-" Emily interjected.

Morgan rolled his eyes. "How is everything going with you two?"

"Good." Emily nodded thoughtfully. "I've learned that Hotch makes good coffee-"

"And I've learned that sometimes Emily talks in her sleep," Hotch added.

Emily gaped at him. "Do I really?!" Hotch shot a smirk in her direction. "What did I say?!" She hissed. 

He ignored her. "Anyway. Mostly it's been quiet."

"Yeah." Emily pitched in. "We're only just getting settled in. We went to a welcome party last night that one of the neighbours threw. Apparently that's something you do down in Hazel Beach. Anyway, I was trying to talk to their parents to get to know them. And I met them at school."

"I've seen them down by the beach but they're mostly just swimming," Hotch said.

"Do you think any of them actually did it?" JJ asked, leaning against the table.

"Hm, yes and no." Emily started.

"Alessio, easy." Hotch put in. "He's the type."

"We ran into him last night at the party." Emily shrugged.

"He was gross," Hotch said strongly.

"Let me guess." Rossi pretended to ponder it. "He hit on Emily last night."

Hotch paused. "It's not about that."

Garcia chuckled. "I mean… that's clearly playing some part in it." Derek high fived her.

Emily cleared her throat, blushing. She did that a lot, Hotch noticed. "Uh. Chloe and Justin seem nicer than the rest. They get good grades, fairly likeable, get along with their parents, et cetera. Lilliana, Teagan and Lucas aren't so much. Teagan is popular, Lucas is a jock, there is really no pattern other than where they live. Alessio though… I'm with Hotch on that one."

"So… what do we do? Wait it out?" Garcia asked.

"Yeah. You have to gain the trust of the kids. Somewhere along the way, they'll kill someone again. When they do, you two need to be looking for any evidence that we can nail them on." Rossi ordered.

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure." Emily nodded.

"I have to go get ready to do my second job now," Hotch complained, standing up and walking over to the kitchen to get some water.

Penelope saluted him. "Thank you, my charming lifeguard king. Your service is appreciated."

Hotch rolled his eyes at her, before disappearing into the bedroom. "Okay, well, we'll talk to you guys later!" Emily waved at them through the screen.

Reid waved back. "Don't get hurt."

"I won't."

“Hotch won’t let her get hurt,” Morgan muttered. The others snickered and Emily glared at them.

“Yeah, and if anything happens, use protection and call me straight after.” JJ winked obviously.

Emily gawked at her. “JJ!”

Her best friend shrugged. “I mean… we were all thinking it.” Penelope begrudgingly nodded her head in agreement.

“Fuck you guys.” Emily hissed, directing her best death stare at them.

“Language,” Rossi said at the same time as Hotch called it from the other room.

Emily made a show of giving up before ending the call. 

* * *

Hotch sighed and looked around the beach. His eyes carefully watched everyone playing in the water or surfing or fishing off the rocks that lined the headland. Nothing. Everyone was happily playing and minding their own business. A group of teenager girls sat further down the beach in tiny bikinis tanning. They were frequently down there, watching the boys surfing and giggling. Emily had commented on it the first time they were down at the beach, of course, pointing out that their bikinis were so skimpy that there was honestly no point in even wearing anything at all. Hotch loved her way of telling it how it was. It was so calming, coming from a job where everyone lied and hid their feelings from the people around them, living double lives. 

Further down the beach from the girls were the surfer boys, as per usual. They tossed their wet, wavy hair around and flexed their muscles, making the girls giggle more. 

There were a few other scattered families and friends along the beach. Hotch spotted a small family splashing in the rock pools. The little boy laughed at his parents as he flicked water at them. The mother scooped him up and they laughed together, one big happy family. It reminded him of Haley and Jack. He smiled.

He was jarred from his thoughts by a voice behind him. “Far out. I swear it got hotter the further I walked from the apartment.” Hotch looked up as Emily flopped down on the sand beside him. “I mean… that’s just plain unfair now. I thought there was meant to be a sea breeze or some shit.”

Hotch looked at her. She looked beautiful- good. He meant good. She wore a white off the shoulder top with light blue denim shorts. Her hair was out and wavy over her shoulder and her eyes were shut in annoyance. 

“You look… really nice.” He said sincerely, instantly cursing in his brain about how terrible that sounds. He was her boss.

She clearly didn’t take it that way. “It’d better look nice, I didn’t wear a strapless bra for no reason.” she rolled her eyes.

“Um… what are you doing down here?” Hotch asked.

“I don’t really know. You finish in, what, twenty minutes or so? I was bored so I figured I would come and meet you down here.” Emily shrugged. “Can we get ice cream?”

Hotch opened his mouth to answer her, namely to roll his eyes at her and have a go at her for being so childish but he was interrupted by someone shouting his name from further down the beach. “Aaron! Is this the missus?"

They both turned to stare down the beach. Two of the other lifeguards walked up to them. They were around Hotch’s age, grinning at the other two cheekily. Emily ducked her head in embarrassment. “She’s my girlfriend. Em, this is Johnny and that’s Robert. They’re the crazy old guys down here. Johnny, Robert, this is Emilia.”

“Ah, Emilia,” Johnny smirked at them. “It’s amazing to meet you. You’re far too pretty for him though, what are you doing with a lowly lifeguard like Aaron?”

Emily chuckled awkwardly. “Um, I mean-”

“Stop it,” Robert elbowed his friend. “You’re putting her on the spot. Hi Emilia, I’m Robert. Johnny is a bit of a weirdo, best ignore him.” Robert held out his hand and she shook it, smiling.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nice to meet you both.” Emily said politely.

Hotch glanced at her briefly before turning back to the others. “Okay. Well, we might get going now. I can’t just force my girlfriend to sit around a beach all day.” He wrapped an arm around Emily’s shoulders. Emily couldn’t help the childish grin that came to her face at this small gesture. She leaned her head against his shoulder as he rubbed his hand up and down her bare arm. She shivered.

“No way, Aaron, you can’t just hide your girlfriend away from us. We’re going down to the pub for dinner. Tucker, Ashlin and Isaac are coming, Isaac is bringing Kiara and Alexa is coming as well.” Johnny suggested.

“Uh, maybe.” Hotch pulled a face. He was conscientious of the fact that Emily almost certainly didn’t want to go. She wasn’t big on gatherings, Hotch had found that out fairly early.

“Talk it over you two, we’re gonna go pack up our stuff.” Johnny and Robert disappeared in the direction of the lockers leaving Hotch and Emily sitting in the sand.

“Ashlin, Tucker and Isaac are the other lifeguards, Kiara is Isaac’s girlfriend and Alexa is Johnny’s wife. They’re all good people.” Hotch helpfully elaborated.

“We can go if you’re up for it.” Emily pushed him slightly.

He grinned at her. “It’s fine if you don’t want to.”

Emily watched him for a second. It was good to see him smile. He didn’t do it enough. He noticed her looking at him though and raised an eyebrow. She quickly cleared her throat. “I never thought I’d say this but I’m kind of in the mood to get drunk with some crazy lifeguards and their girls.” She smirked.

“I’m now deeming you the designated driver.” Hotch quickly said.

Emily pouted. “The pub is legit there.” She pointed out an old building a few hundred metres down the beach. “That’s walking distance from here and our apartment. We can both get crazily drunk.” 

“I think that we both know I’m going to end up babysitting you.”

“You’re such a killjoy, Hotch.”

“So are you guys coming?” Robert called as he walked out of the change rooms, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

“Yep,” Emily called over as Hotch stood up. He offered her his hand and she took it to pull herself up, wiping the sand off her legs.

They walked down the beach with the others. Ashlin and Tucker had appeared out of nowhere and joined them, they were meeting the rest of the group at the pub. Emily was walking beside Hotch who was eagerly talking to his new friends. She was quiet, watching the people run along the beach and the people sitting in the cafes or restaurants that lined the beachfront. That was a hobby of Emily’s; people watching. She’d always found it calming and now she tried to profile the random people nearby as a practice of sorts. She finished profiling a man in a suit and tie who was on the phone with someone important- he’d been sitting straight and tall, his tone formal. Her eyes were scanning the streets aimlessly when she spotted a group in the darkness of the alleyway next to the pub. They were the teenagers from the apartment building, their heads bent together in discussion. Alessio looked scary, his face barely illuminated as he stood next to the teens. They all looked fairly excited about something, like the way kids are excited when they steal food from the kitchen, with a sort of dangerous glint in their eyes like they knew what they were doing was wrong. Emily faltered, trying to see what they were all looking at, and almost tripped. 

Hotch caught her arm and looked at her worriedly. “Are you okay?” he murmured.

Emily stared at him blankly and then turned around to stare at the alleyway again. They were gone, walking along the street now and looking like a normal group of teenagers going to the carnival. Emily swallowed and turned back to Hotch. They had clearly been doing something, what though? “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.” She’d check it out later, but right now they needed to keep their cover.

Hotch clearly didn’t believe her but he let it slide. They kept walking with the others, Hotch wasn’t just paying attention to the rest of the lifeguards though, he kept shooting her looks like he expected her to just vanish or something. He always worried too much. After a moment or two, he slipped his hand into hers cautiously, clearly half thinking that she’d drop his hand instantly. She didn’t though instead she intertwined her fingers with his and tried to focus on how natural that felt, instead of how worried she was that another innocent person was going to die tonight.

* * *

Dinner was fun. If Emily was completely honest, she never would have guessed that joining the BAU or even just the FBI would get her on an undercover operation with her boss where she had to go and get drunk with a bunch of lifeguards and pretend she was in love with her boss. Who she totally wasn’t in love with by the way. Obviously.

Johnny’s wife Alexa was keen to tell the group stories of their kids and how awkward Johnny had been when they first met. “He saw me and my friends and he paused for a second. He almost got run over.” Alexa laughed while Johnny mock glared at her for teasing him. 

Kiara and Ashlin sighed longingly, the two girls clearly romantics. “Well, I met Isaac in high school, we were chem lab partners in our senior year. He didn’t ask me out until two years later though. We’ve been together ever since.” Kiara grinned at her long time boyfriend and he kissed her lightly.

“I’m currently in a long term relationship with myself, and I don’t see any changes happening with that anytime soon,” Tucker smirked, clearly slightly tipsy already.

“Hear hear.” Robert grinned, clinking their beer bottles together.

“How about you two?” Ashlin turned to Hotch and Emily, running a hand through her long blonde hair. “How did you guys meet?”

Emily swallowed. “Uh, well, we’ve only been together a bit over two years now. We met at, um-” for the life of her, she could not remember their cover story. The only thing springing into her brain was the story of how she’d walked into Hotch’s office to the confusion of everyone only to later be told she was only sent there to gain and then betray the team's trust. Which wasn’t helpful, given their current circumstances.

“We met at a wedding.” Hotch thankfully cut in. “It was her college friend and my cousin. She got super drunk and I walked her home.”

“I was not drunk!” Emily played along, hitting him playfully on the arm.

“Sure you weren’t, Em.” Hotch patted her arm with fake reassurance, pulling a face at the rest of the group. They laughed. “And then we met again because she left her jacket in my car, so the next day she got my number off her friend and humbly called me to apologise and ask for her jacket back. We went out to breakfast as her way of saying sorry and then we kept in touch.”

“That’s so cute.” Ashlin pouted. “I wish I had a boyfriend.”

“Just go out with Tucker, he’d be more than happy.” Johnny laughed and the two thirty-somethings blushed.

“Stop it, Johnny, or I’ll whip out even more embarrassing stories about you.” Alexa threatened, adjusting the hair elastic that held her mass of deep red curls in place.

“Sorry, Lex,” Johnny muttered.

The conversation continued around Emily as she adjusted her top, a small frown on her face as she thought about the kids in the alleyway. All of the victims had been found in alleyways near Hazel Beach- for such a small town, it had a remarkable amount of alleyways. Garcia was looking for a pattern to which alleyways the kids were found in but so far she hadn’t found anything. Still, Emily couldn’t help but be on edge. There could be another body in that alleyway, another girl who wouldn’t be found for a day or two, and here they were sitting down in a pub drinking beers with a bunch of lifeguards.

“Are you okay?” Hotch muttered to her.

She glanced up at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I just…” she brushed her hair behind her ear, her eyes landing on the restroom in the back corner. “Need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute.” She said the last sentence louder so that the rest of the group heard before she excused herself, standing up and putting her bag over her shoulder with a smile at the group. She walked off in the direction of the back of the pub. She felt Hotch’s eyes follow her, his usual worried frown on his face. Ducking behind a pillar at the back of the bar, she pulled her phone out of her bag.  _ 8:18 pm.  _ She’d be back in five minutes.

Her hand found the cool handle of the door in the dark room and she silently slipped out into the quiet, empty street.

* * *

They were many, many reasons why Emily Prentiss tried not to make a habit of walking through dark alleyways at night. The most obvious one: the number of cases she’d been called in to look at which involved women walking into alleyways and getting murdered, raped or kidnapped… it was a pretty common thing they got called in to look at, as sad as that was. Another reason was that they were just creepy. And this one was no exception.

Large tip bins lined the sides, overflowing with plastic bags and a stench of rotten fish and other disgusting rubbish. The ground was covered in puddles and Emily did her best to avoid them. They didn’t exactly look like rainwater. Some looked like oil.

One thing was certain though. There wasn’t anyone else in here. Dead or alive. Emily kicked at a pile of garbage bags and they crashed into each other, bottles clinking together. These were the parts of town tourists didn’t see. She didn’t especially want to see them either.

A noise behind her made her jump, her hand flying to her hip instinctively. Although she didn’t have a gun there in the first place. It occurred to her as she watched the rat scurry away that she had walked into a dark alleyway in a town she didn’t know with absolutely zero protection. Real smart. Murderers may as well come find her, she was currently an easy target. But she was calm. She was ready to fight back. She was a strong girl who didn’t scream in the face of danger and no one was-

Emily couldn’t help the scream that left her mouth as she heard footsteps behind her. Contrary to the brave outwardly approach that she was definitely pulling off, being defenceless in an alleyway was one of her biggest fears. The figure behind her was taller than her, his frame muscular and-

“Calm down, Prentiss,” he said.

Emily glared at him. “Fuck off, Hotch, you nearly killed me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be alone in an alley,” Hotch replied, frowning at her. “Are you aware of how many women your age are killed in places like this?”

“Trust me,” Emily responded, walking past him towards the street. “I’m very aware.”

“Do you have a death wish then?”

“Why are you here, Hotch?” Emily asked, turning around once she reached the street, one hand resting on the pole that stretched up to the street lamp.

“You apparently went to the bathroom but then didn’t come back for a while so I came to get you. I’m not stupid, I know you weren’t going to the bathroom. Why did you come to a random alleyway though?”

“Because I saw the teenagers here earlier,” Emily told him.

Hotch raised his eyebrows at her, unimpressed. “And you  _ didn’t  _ think that was worth mentioning?”

Emily shrugged, embarrassed. “I don’t know… I only saw them for a second. Then they went back. I just wanted to make sure, and there is nothing here anyway. Nothing I can see at least, you may have noticed, but it’s dark in there.”

Hotch looked over his shoulder into the alley for a second before turning back to her. “Yeah, good observation, Prentiss.” He sarcastically stated.

“Thanks,” Emily muttered, rolling her eyes.

“Let’s go. We can come back tomorrow and check it out if you want, but we need evidence and just seeing them near a potential crime scene is not enough to nail them. With good lawyers, they’ll be able to get out of that easily.” Hotch motioned for her to follow him back to the pub and she obliged, keen to get out of the cool evening air.

“Yeah, I guess. First thing tomorrow though?” Emily confirmed as he held the door open for her to slip through.

“Yes.” Hotch nodded as he sat down.

The group's attention was instantly back on them. “Well now.” Johnny wolf-whistled. “Where have our newest couple been hiding out all this time.”

Tucker winked. “I mean… you were sure gone a while.” Ashlin elbowed him.

Horror and embarrassment were clear on Emily’s face when it occurred to her what everyone thought they’d been doing. Hotch chuckled awkwardly. “It’s not- we weren’t-”

“Sure,” Alexa smirked. “I know how it is.”

“But we weren’t-” Hotch tried again but was cut off by Tucker.

“Look, where and when you guys wanna get it on is none of our business.” He said bluntly. Emily choked on the small sip of her beer that she’d had.

“Jesus, Tucker, some subtlety would be appreciated.” Kiara kicked him under the table.

Emily and Hotch didn’t say anything, looking everywhere but at each other. “See, Tucker, now you’ve gone and scared them.” Alexa shook her head disapprovingly. “We have to get going anyway, the sitter can only look after the kids until nine. It was lovely to meet you, Aaron and Emilia.”

“Nice to meet you too.” Emily had to clear her throat before she spoke, leaning forward to kiss Alexa’s cheek politely. “Well, uh, have to do this again another time. We should get going as well. Come on H- Aaron.” she quickly corrected herself.

He stood up and they said goodbye to the rest of the group. Emily tried not to concentrate on how natural it had felt to hang out as his girlfriend and how easily people seemed to believe it. She's dealt with plenty of situations where the undercover couple were unable to convince people that they were together.

Hotch and her must be different.


	5. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the wonderful Alina who was practically the entire brains behind this entire chapter lmao sorry that it's short

The beach was windy when they walked along the path, a light layer of sand covering the pavers. Emily’s hair blew into her face and she pushed it out of the way, focused on trying to get to the alleyway from the night before while acting casual. It’s far too early for them to blow their cover. 

It was quiet. The shops along the beach were closed, a few people swam or surfed in the early morning. It was calm, peaceful. Hotch walked beside her, his pace matching hers and his expression one of the professional ones she was used to. Emily remembered seeing the kids in an alleyway a few streets away from the pub. It felt weird referring to them as unsubs, they were all so young. In the darkness of the previous night she couldn’t be sure that there wasn’t a body pressed up against the corner of the alley. But as Emily rounded the corner, it was clear that there had been.

A group of people stood in the alleyway, two of them looked horrified, one was on the phone urgently, presumably to the police. Another two were bending over something on the ground. Emily ran over, ignoring Hotch’s shout for her to wait up.

_ Never become personally involved in a case.  _ That was the first thing you’d learn as an FBI agent. But it was pretty much too late for that. Emily always tried to detach herself from cases when they got hard, tried to compartmentalise but sometimes it just didn’t work.

It was one of those times.

The girl was Oaklynn Byrne. Honour’s student in her senior year, tight curls, exceptionally good French student. She hadn’t been reported missing, Hotch and Emily would have heard from the rest of the team if she had. She matched the victimology perfectly. Hotch pulled Emily away as she stared at the body, twisted and abandoned in the cold alley. No matter how long she spent analysing killers and getting inside their heads, she would never understand what drove them and their ideas. A distorted sense of reality, maybe

Soon the street was flooded with people, yellow tape holding off the public, Hotch, Emily and the rest of the original arrivers standing to the side with some cops. A black SUV pulled up and the BAU climbed out, Rossi and Reid going straight to the corpse while Morgan and JJ walked over with two cops. 

“I’m sorry that all of you had to see that,” JJ started, her media liaison side clear. “We’ll be interviewing you all now so if you could please co-operate and try to remember as much as possible that would be a huge help for us to find this person before they can hurt anyone else. Thank you.”

“If that the FBI?” the people behind Emily and Hotch started to whisper.

“I think so. I heard they were called in.”

“But why? How is that going to help?”

“I’m not sure.”

Morgan headed over to Emily. She smiled up at him briefly. Behind her, she was vaguely aware of Hotch turning to talk to JJ. “Hello, Ma’am, could you please tell me your name?” Morgan started, acting as though he didn’t know her. It felt weird.

“Emilia Prior. P-R-I-O-R.” Emily’s voice sounded weak, even to her own ears. She cleared her throat as Morgan scribbled it down on the paper.

“Thank you, Ms Prior. May I ask what you were doing when you found the body this morning?”

“My boyfriend, Aaron Howington and I… we were going for a walk. We live just around the corner. We saw the commotion and came over to see what was wrong.” Emily’s eyes flicked across the scene. It was definitely the same alleyway she’d been in the night before.

“And did you notice anything strange? Out of place?” Emily shook her head.

“No, but, uh. Last night… we, my boyfriend and I, we went out to dinner and we saw- Aaron, remember the kids we saw last night?” Emily turned around to face Aaron. 

JJ looked up at her. “You saw kids around this alleyway last night? What time?” 

“Maybe 6:30ish,” Hotch supplied.

“Was it Alessio?” JJ whispered.

Emily nodded. “Yeah. And the whole gang.”

“Were they doing anything dodgy?” Morgan asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

Hotch shrugged. “It was more the fact that they were just standing in an alleyway similar to the ones all the other victims had been found in and talking secretively.”

“Which I guess isn’t massively rare for teenagers,” Morgan deadpanned.

“That says a lot about the American teenager population.” JJ rolled her eyes.

Emily smirked at that. “I went out later at around 8:15 but I couldn’t see anyone. Except for Aaron. Who scared me to death.” she didn’t notice how his given name had just slipped out.

Hotch shook his head. “I told her she’s gonna get kidnapped if she goes into dark streets alone in the middle of the night. It’s in no way safe.”

“That’s true, Prentis- Emilia.”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Come on, don’t both gang up on me, that’s not fair!”

Morgan chuckled, getting back to business as he noticed the other interviews finishing up around them. “Thanks again, Ms Prior, we’ll contact you again if we need you. Do you have a number we can reach you on?”

“Same as his,” Emily jabbed her thumb in Hotch’s direction.

“Alright. Stay safe.” Morgan and JJ smiled one more time before heading back under the crime scene tape to rejoin the rest of the BAU. Rossi shot them a smile and Reid a discrete thumbs up. 

Emily and Hotch walked back over in the direction of the beach path, heading back to the apartment. “Are you okay?” Hotch asked after a moment.

Emily looked at him, her face carefully masked with confusion. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason.” And at that moment, Emily knew that he would always be able to see right through her charade.

\-----

“I think we need milk.”

“Milk?”

“Yeah, milk. Y’know, the stuff that comes out a cow, you put it in coffee-”

“Shut up, I know what milk is. I just thought we had some.” Hotch rolled his eyes at her.

She pushed the trolley along next to him, leaning her eyebrows on the handles. “Well, if you want to keep substituting sleep for coffee you might want to get some. Although you put such a small amount of milk in it that it probably doesn’t even make a difference.” Emily smirked at him.

He shot her a mock glare over his shoulder as he picked up a cartoon and placed it in the trolley. “What else?”

“Um… eggs. And butter. And cheese.” Emily thought for a moment. “And probably some fruit to balance out all the unhealthy crap we seem to live off. I’m thinking apples and pears.”

This was domestic experience number who-knows-what. Casual clothes and a shopping list coming straight out of Emily’s memory, aka a recipe for disaster. 

“Well, what aisle are they in?” Hotch peered at the shelf beside them.

Emily stared at him, a look of complete disbelief on her face. “Dude. There is only one cold aisle in this shop and we’re in it, they’re not exactly going to be hidden.”

Hotch rolled his eyes at her, pulling butter and cheese off the shelf. “Let’s get a move on. We can’t spend all day getting groceries.”

“I mean… we sort of can.”

“Not helpful, Prentiss,” Hotch smirked, walking out of the aisle whilst she pushed the trolley.

“Who’s Prentiss?” Emily kicked his shin.

“Ouch. No need to get violent.” 

She grinned up at him. “I think we need cereal. And chocolate.” she grabbed a bar of milk chocolate off the shelf and tossed it in the trolley.

“Chocolate?” Hotch raised his eyebrow at her.

“Yep. It’s a crucial ingredient.”

“To what?”

“Everything.”

“Okay, Em, listen up,” The nickname slipped out easily, neither of them really noticing it as he picked up the chocolate bar and held it up. “Chocolate… is a sometimes food.”

There was a pause as Emily stared up at him. “A sometimes food.”

“Exactly. And this is not that time.” Hotch grinned at her expression.

“... you’re kidding, right?” 

“Even Jack has a better comprehension of what he should and shouldn’t eat.”

“Oh shut up…” Emily couldn’t stop the smile that raised to her lips, turning away and walking indignantly down the aisle.

“Like the number of calories in this bar- the more important question is where are you putting it all?” Hotch followed her.

“Huh?”

“I mean, you eat chocolate like all day every day but you’re so skinny!” He felt like his big smile was ridiculous but couldn’t bring himself to care. She had this effect on him.

Emily smirked at him. “That, Aaron Howington, is my little secret.”

Hotch shook his head in disbelief. “You’re unbelievable,” he muttered. Emily couldn’t stop the blush that covered her cheeks at the way he clearly hadn’t intended her to hear that. She kept walking, willing her mind to stop trying to make this a big deal, he clearly meant it as just friends.

“We, uh. We need bread.” Emily darted quickly down an aisle to their left to grab a loaf before walking back to where he waited by the register.

“Is that everything?” he asked as she started to unload the groceries onto the checkout conveyor belt.

She nodded. “Yeah. Actually, wait. The fruit! Hang on, let me go get some.”

“I can get it.” Hotch held out his arm to stop her from walking past.

Emily raised an eyebrow at him, secretly touched by the gesture. “Do you even know what types to get?”

“I guess it’ll just have to be a surprise.” He shot her a grin and then walked off in the direction of the fresh fruit.

Emily watched him go, leaning back against the conveyor with an affectionate smile on her face. He was quite a gentleman and she couldn’t imagine why Haley had given him up. Well… she could understand. The job had plenty of downsides but she couldn’t imagine anything else. She’d probably be a completely different person without it. Without him.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you alright?” 

Emily spun around, snapping herself out of her daydream. “Yes. Yes, I’m sorry. Just caught up in my own thoughts, you know?”

The woman at the counter laughed. “It was that boy, wasn’t it? Is he your boyfriend, sweetheart?”

“Uh, yep.”

“Well, he has a good strong southern figure so I can’t blame you for wanting that one. Good morals… he’s definitely from down south, am I right?” The checkout lady was about a good fifteen years older than Emily, a kind air around her.

“He’s from Virginia,” Emily laughed.

The checkout lady shrugged. “Well, he’d fit in real nice down south, I can tell you that straight up.”

Hotch appeared behind Emily, placing some plastic bags of fruit down in front of her. “There.”

Emily smiled back at him. “What did you get,” she asked curiously opening the bag.

“Strawberries and grapes. Because strawberries will taste nice with the chocolate you just insisted on buying and the grapes were on sale.”

She couldn’t resist laughing. “I never had you pegged as a bargain hunter, Aaron.”

He elbowed her lightly. “Shut up.”

She reached out to take the bags but Hotch batted her arms out of the way. “I’ll take them.”

“Wow, such a gentleman.” Emily snorted, touched but teasing. They headed out of the shops, walking past the numerous bakeries and clothing shops but then Emily grabbed his elbow before they left the shopping centre.

“What?”

“You know what we forgot?” she whispered, a mischievous glint in her eye.

Hotch rolled his eyes. “Why do I feel like I won’t like the answer.”

“We forgot alcohol,” Emily jerked her finger back in the direction of the liquor store.

Hotch tried not to smile. “Are we even allowed to?”

“Who cares, they’ll never know.” she giggled, tugging him towards the store.

“They will know if they look at the expenses on this credit card!” 

“Killjoy, let’s get some wine quickly and then we can go.” 

“Of course you’re a wine girl.” Hotch followed her.

She eyed him. “And you would be that stereotypical beer guy, correct me if I’m wrong.” he didn’t say anything. “Told you.” 

Her triumphant grin was infectious and soon he was mirroring her grin with his own. “Let’s get some beer and then we can go.”

“No way, wine.”

“Beer.”

“Wine.” 

They both glared at each other, setting up their best death stares. There was electricity between them, she couldn’t deny it. Neither of them could deny it. Hotch’s death stare was well practised but Emily was stubborn, persistent, not going to give up for anything. Eventually, he had to step back, conceding.

“Ha, I win!” she grabbed a bottle off the shelf and handed it to him. “Loser pays.”

“We’re using the same credit card-” Hotch started as they walked up to the counter before giving up.

“Is this all?” the boy behind the counter asked, scanning it through. He looked bored, not interested in being there.

“Yep.” Emily nodded.

“Can I see some i.d?” he asked, looking at Hotch who was holding the credit card.

Hotch gaped, looking back at him. “Do I look younger than 21 to you?”

Emily laughed. “Just show him.”

Hotch turned to her, his mouth still open. “Do I look 21 to  _ you? _ ”

Emily laughed even harder. “No way… Not even close.”

Hotch glared at her as he handed over his drivers license. The boy behind the counter nodded and handed it back, prompting Hotch to scan his card before handing them a bag with the wine in it.

They walked in companionable silence back to the car, comfortable and just happy to listen to the voices of the town moving on around them. “Where to now?” Hotch asked as he unlocked the car.

“Home.” Emily yawned, leaning back against her seat.

She'd never seen this side of him, not really. Now she never wanted to let it go.


	6. Part 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this chapter took so long :(

Hazel Beach High was small. The buildings were made of old stone and concrete with the school colours, green and red, decorating the halls. Some teenager had spray painted ‘the Christmas School’ in the school colours across the back wall of one of the campuses, and no one had cleaned it off. Old cans of soft drink were in the gutters, loose pieces of paper flew across the field. It was a mess.

Emily was held back at the school. From her desk in the staff room she had a clear view of the football field and the front gate which she stared at aimlessly, bored senseless by the papers she was meant to be grading. She shook her head to get back into reality, using her thick red marker to write and circle the C- on the test paper in front of her. Some of her students could use studying. Sofia Addler, a young, short German teacher who had learnt the language in high school, was on the next table, muttering the words under her breath as she marked. Emily scribbled a few words of feedback and corrections in the margins of the paper. It was Italian, but the student clearly hadn’t listened when they talked about verbs, because noi parliamo did not mean they speak.

“Which class are you doing now?” Sofia leaned over to talk to her, adding another paper to her substantially higher completed pile.

“Uh,” Emily looked quickly at the name at the top of her paper. “Tenth grade. You?”

“My 10’s did theirs weeks ago. I’m doing 11th grade and then I have to do 9th.” she answered, smoothing down her blue blouse.

“Any interesting errors?” the agent couldn’t help but ask, a small smile playing on her lips. “I got one boy who said he was going swimming with the Pope, not his dad.”

“That error beats any one I was going to say.” Sofia said as she laughed slightly. “Oh, look at the time. I should really be going. Gute Nacht, Emilia.”

“Buona notte, Sofia. Do you have plans?” Emily asked.

“Yes, Liam is taking me out to dinner.” Sofia smiled happily. Liam was her husband of a little under six months and they were clearly still in that honeymoon phase.

Emily nodded. “That sounds fun. Enjoy!”

“Thank you, tell Aaron I said hello.” the German teacher grabbed her bag and headed for the door.

“Bye!” Emily called as the door closed behind her. She surveyed the large room. Two science teachers, one sport and four maths teachers. They seemed to be having some sort of debate in the back corner, a complicated algebraic problem drawn up on a small whiteboard.

Emily looked back to survey her piles of papers. She was ahead of schedule but she hadn’t quite finished. She was prepared to finish the rest of the papers when something caught her eye outside. The school had two basketball courts, an indoor, new one, and an abandoned one in the back corner, behind the football field. It was out of bounds and no students were allowed there but that didn’t stop the gangs of the so called ‘popular kids’ to mill there during lunch. It backed into the small forests and the hoops were rust covered. It gave the school a bad image.

Kids were back there. A massive group of them, usually there were a few kids still at school later, one or two coming back from the library, but this was a particularly large group. She could recognise Lucas, Lilliana and Teagan in the thick of it, Justin on the outside. A man leaning against the goal post sort of looked like Alessio but from the distance she couldn’t be sure. Emily stood up quickly. Mitch Falco, a well liked sports teacher, looked over at her.

“What’s up, Emilia?” 

“There’s a gang in the abandoned basketball court. They’re surrounding something.” Emily grabbed her jacket, walking towards the door.

“Or someone. I’ll come with you.” Mitch offered, following her.

“No, it’s fine-” Emily started before realising that she wasn’t an FBI agent, she was a teacher. “Thank you.”

They walked out of the staff room quickly, Emily pulling her jacket on and following him. The kids were in a thick crowd and Emily and Mitch pushed through the outer kids to try and get to the middle. As soon as the various students looked around and realised they were teachers they ran off, scared of getting caught. There came a point where they couldn’t push through anymore, there were about two rows of kids in a tight circle around someone. Mitch cleared his throat. It was loud.

“Everyone!” he shouted. The effect was pretty instantaneous, the kids split, diving for the trees around. “Lucas, I saw you so come back before I give you more detentions that you’re already going to get.”

The blonde boy sulked, dragging his heels as he came out from behind the trees. He came to a stop in front of them and looked at the girl half lying on the court in front of them, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know how she got there.”

Emily glared at him. “I bet you didn’t. What were you all surrounding then?” she crouched down to help the girl up. “Are you okay?” she nodded, wiping at her eyes.

“Teagan got a new phone.”

“So Teagan was here as well?” Mitch raised his eyebrows. “Nice job dragging her into it.”

“If it was just a new phone, why did you all split? And why was Steph on the ground?” Emily gestured to the girl, whose scattered books named her as Steph Finchley. 

“She must have fallen over. I don’t know why everyone else ran.” Lucas obviously lied.

“Well then why did you run?”

“Because they ran. Duh.” He shrugged. “Steph, I can walk you home?”

The girl shook her head frantically. Her body language told Emily everything she needed to know about what had really happened.

She needed to contact Penelope. Steph seemed frighteningly like their other victims. The books she was carrying were all for grades older than her own with numerous sticky notes poking out of them. She wore glasses and had long, curly brown hair which she wore in a plait. If Emily could send her school photo to Pen, they would have more evidence if Steph was injured. What hurt the most was that there was nothing that they could really do to prevent her from being attacked. Girls in that age range had been told to stick to crowded areas and tell someone if they were approached by people who seemed dangerous or who they didn’t know. Agent Redfield had been clear to tell them that they weren’t to warn the kids as it could blow their cover and that was the last thing they needed.

“Steph, I’d like to have a word with you in my office. About, uh…” she quickly looked at one of the books the young girl was holding. “Your interest in Latin America. I am interested in the subject myself.”

Steph nodded gratefully, seeing this as the way out that it clearly was. “Thank you, Miss.”

“Not to worry.”

“I’ll just hang back here with Mr Mitchells, if that’s alright with you, Emilia.” Mitch asked. Lucas rolled his eyes dramatically.

“Of course. Come on, Steph.”

The two women headed back off down towards the staff room. When they were far enough away from the boys to not be overheard, Emily spoke up. “So… how long have they been bullying you?”

Steph swallowed. “Uh. A few months, nothing major until today though.”

“Do you know what brought it on?”

“I heard that Lucas failed his maths assessment. I’m not sure though.” the young girl shrugged.

“Alright. You really shouldn’t be out here on your own though. With everything that is going on.” Emily tried, aiming for a way to subtly warn the girl.

She laughed wryly. “Geez, Miss, you sound like a cop!”

“Well, it’s true.” Emily covered up quickly. “No one wants anything to happen to you. Or any of the other girls.”

“Thanks for all the help, Miss. I’ve got to get going now, my bus leaves in five minutes.”

“Alright. Be careful. And talk to your parents about the bullying!” Emily called as the girl waved and ran off, her books clutched to her chest.

She should head home herself, Emily realised. Hotch would have been back an hour or so ago. She’d texted him saying that she had to work late but she was tired and needed to try and contact Penelope. She walked back into the staffroom and grabbed her bag, putting her papers inside. She could work on them over the weekend. But right now she would rather be in their apartment with Hotch, watching a movie and eating some disastrous home cooked meal.

She’d done enough work for the day.

* * *

Hotch stood in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. The lines around his eyes were prominent, enhanced from the stress of the job. Emily was still working so he was at home alone. As much as he loved living with her, he wasn’t quite used to having someone around his house who wasn’t an elementary school aged boy. The silence was like a breath of fresh air. She was surprisingly loud.

He unbuttoned his shirt slowly. The evidence of the stab wounds on his chest seemed clear as ever, even though he knew that they looked better than they had in the months after the attack. He was stabbed 9 times. 9 times while he’d lay helplessly there, praying someone would find him. But they probably wouldn’t have. Hotch hadn’t had any way to raise the alarm, to let them know he wasn’t alright.

Vitamin E oil helped. He used it sometimes, in the wake of the attack. Reid had mentioned at some point in time that there wasn’t really anything that would help scars to fully disappear but the vitamin E oil helped to soothe them and seemed to have made them less noticeable. Seeing as Emily was out, this seemed as good a time as any to do it without her walking in and remembering what had happened.

He didn’t want her pity.

Hotch tried tearing at the packet with no success. It was made of that plastic which was particularly hard to rip and didn’t want to be helpful. He sighed as he admitted defeat and pulled open the medicine cabinet. No scissors in there. He could swear he remembered Emily saying that she was putting some in there.

There was a pair in the kitchen, he knew that much, so he walked out there, packet in hand, shirt undone, eyes tired. He was too occupied with sifting through the drawers that he didn’t notice the door opening. So much for his FBI training.

He held the scissors with a grin but his moment of triumph was interrupted by a voice behind him. “Hotch?”

The man in question spun around, his hand flying to his hip where his holster usually sat before he realised two things. One, he didn’t have it on him, it was locked in the safe as had been for the past weeks. Two, it was Emily.

She stood in the doorway, her confusion and slight amusement clear through her raised eyebrow. Casual clothing on her was still his favourite thing. She dropped her bag on the lounge but didn’t take her eyes off him for very long.

He cleared his throat, clutching his shirt together with one hand while the other one held the scissors and vitamin E packet behind his back. “Hey Emily, why are you home so early?”

“A girl named Steph was being bullied at the school,” she quietly walked towards him, her voice slow, her face suspicious. He could tell by this point because she was practically an open book to him. “And so I intervened but it was Alessio’s gang and others and she matches the victim description…” she grabbed his wrist from behind his back suddenly, pulling it around into view. “What are you doing?!”

He instinctively curled his hand around the packet, almost stabbing himself on the scissors in the process. “Nothing.” he said, a bit too quickly.

Her fingers made quick work of uncurling his, pulling the small sachet free. “Vitamin E Oil?”

“Uh, yeah. Do you want to order in or cook?” 

She clearly noticed the change in topic, she was a profiler after all. And she was nothing if not the best. “Hotch?”

“I think Italian sounds pretty good but I’m also craving Chinese, or maybe just some good old fashioned pizza-” he rambled.

“Aaron.” Now that name got his attention. “What’s it for?”

“It doesn’t matter, seriously.”

“You have to tell me. We’re dating after all.” she slightly smirked at that.

If only she knew what effect her saying that had on him.

“Come on, Em, can’t we just drop it?”

She clearly wasn’t impressed as she leaned back against the kitchen bench, blocking his way out of the room. “You have two minutes to start talking.”

Their impromptu staring match lasted for a good portion of those two minute, neither wanting to back down. Brown eyes meeting brown. Hotch’s death stare, which he had spent a good few years working to perfect, barely worked when it came to her. So he gave up.

“It’s for my scars.” he muttered.

She narrowed her eyes at him and then walked towards him, raising an eyebrow again. “Sorry?”

“My scars. It makes them less obvious.”

“Your scars?” Emily was clearly confused.

“My… Foyet scars.”

“Your- oh. Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise, it didn’t occur to me that-” Emily fumbled, clearly not expecting that, or anything related to that.

“It’s okay.”

Before he could say anything else, her hands were on his chest, pushing his shirt apart to get a look at them. He gaped at her, quickly moving to hold his shirt back together. “Emily!”

“No,” she looked up at him and he thought for a second her eyes looked wet. “Let me see them, Aaron.”

There was that name again. He dropped his hands to his sides to let her go ahead, turning away to not see the disgust in her eyes. She stared at them for a moment, taking it in, before reaching out and tracing one slowly. It didn’t hurt, they’d healed ages ago, but that didn’t stop him from sucking in a small breath. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything.

She did look up at him after a while. A tear rolled down her cheek as she stared at him.

“Emily…” his arms came up to hold hers.

“Look at what he did to you.” she sniffled.

He swallowed and brushed the tear away. “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

That seemed to make her tears fall faster. “He’s a bastard, a monster-”

“But he’s dead and I’m not.” 

She dropped against his chest then, muffling her sobs. He wrapped his arms around her back and rested his chin on the top of her head, rubbing one arm up her back and the other running through her hair.

This was the first time he’d really seen her cry. He’d seen her with teary eyes, with one or two tears, but never like this.

It broke his heart.

He vowed to himself then and there that he would never make her cry again.

Ever.


	7. Part 7

The doorbell was clear and loud, echoing through the apartment. Emily looked up from where she was doing the dishes, her hands wet and the half washed bowl in her hands. "Hotc- Aaron," she amended, aware that whoever was at the door might hear her. "Can you grab the door?"

Hotch was on the balcony, reading a book. He'd offered to do the dishes but she'd shoved him outside because he kept being the perfect guy and it was making it hurt too much to remind herself it was wrong. She'd spent too much time with him and while she absolutely loved spending time with him she just needed a breather. 

Hotch walked in from outside and headed over to the door while she dried her hands off. "You okay?" He asked. Annoyingly, he was still a profiler.

She tried not to be too transparent. "Yep. I'm just going to wash my hands." She walked off towards the bathroom. Hotch saw right through her, she knew it, but he let it slide as he opened the door.

"Oh, uh, are you okay? Come in?" She heard him say, worry clear in her voice so she ran back out.

"What's wrong?" Chloe stood in their doorway, tears running down her cheeks as she clutched something tightly in her hands. "Chloe?"

"Miss Prior." Chloe hiccuped, wiping her tears away as she ran towards her languages teacher and threw her hands around her. Emily hugged her back, confusion clear in her eyes as she shot a look towards Hotch. He shrugged. She turned back to the teenager in her arms. "Chloe, are you okay?"

"Yes." She took a deep breath, stepping back from Emily. "It's just… my parents are away until the weekend and they always tell us at school to talk to teachers about problems and mum and dad also said to go to you or one of the other adults in the apartment block if I need anything so…"

"Okay, uh," Emily stumbled, trying to think of what to do. "Why don't you sit down, I'll get you some water."

"Thanks," Chloe whispered, moving towards the lounge but not before she pushed the thing in her hands, a small box, into Emily's.

"What is it?" Hotch asked when they were in the kitchen, filling up a glass with water while she fumbled with getting the lid off the box.

She frowned. "I don't know." Emily finally pulled the lid off and her face fell. "Oh, Chloe…"

Hotch's eyes scanned her face, looking for a clue. Her eyes were sad and slightly teary as she stared at the object inside the box. 

"Emily?" Hotch prompted.

"Here," Emily whispered, placing it in his hands before hurrying back out to the blonde teenager.

Hotch looked inside the box and frowned. A pregnancy test filled the inside, the pink positive sign cheery, not at all reflecting the state of the girl whose it was. He quickly followed Emily.

"It's okay," Emily whispered to Chloe as the teenager leaned against her, still crying.

"What am I supposed to do?" Chloe sobbed.

"It's okay. There are plenty of things you can do." Emily tried her best to soothe the girl, she'd been there.

"I'm only seventeen!"

"I know. Is it Lucas'?" Emily carefully asked, looking up at Hotch for a second. His face was blank.

"Yes! It was one time, he said it would be fine! What am I going to go with a baby! Oh my gosh, this is what the school always tells us. We always laughed about the teen mum talks but I'm going to be a teen mum." She buried her face in her hands.

"It's okay, Chloe. I understand, I can help." Emily rubbed a hand up and down her back.

Chloe sat up, staring at her. "How can you understand! You haven't been here!" Her hands covered her mouth after the outburst. "Omg I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do that I'm just stressed and scared and-"

"It's okay. I, uh," Emily looked up at Hotch again. His eyes were questioning now and now Emily's face looked scared. Scared of his reaction when he finds out what she did. "I got pregnant. As well." She couldn't even look at Hotch anymore. "I was 15." She whispered.

Chloe looked up at her, her eyes were hopeful. "What did you do?"

"I got an abortion. A friend of mine helped me. My parents never knew." Emily murmured. Hotch's eyes were trained on her, his brow furrowed. She'd never told him.

"An abortion. Could I get an abortion? I don't have enough money. Oh my gosh, my parents are going to kill me."

"Listen. You can get an abortion. I'll pay and I'll take you there. No one wants to do that alone, I promise." Emily said, nodding her head supportively.

"Really? No, I can't take that." Chloe shook her head.

"Yes, you can. Please. I'd be happy to." Emily pressed.

Chloe took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, yeah."

"Yeah?"

Chloe nodded, fresh tears appearing. "Yeah. I'm so scared. I don’t want to be a part of that group anymore. They do… bad things. You don’t understand but I don’t like it.”

Emily hugged her again. "It will all be over soon, I promise. You should just leave, tell them that you want out. Don’t do something you’re uncomfortable with."

Chloe sniffled. "I’m going to tell them tomorrow.” she stood up brushing herself off. “Alright. I need to go now though. Dad wants me to call him, on skype, so he can make sure I'm not staying out too late." She pulled a wry smile.

"Okay, come to me if you need anything. I'll see if I can book you an appointment for next week." 

"Thank you." Chloe hugged her one more time before turning to Hotch. "Thank you, Aaron. Sorry for showing up unannounced."

"It's fine, Chloe." Hotch stood up, standing behind Emily. She nervously tensed but kept a smile on her face to stop her nerves from showing to the teen. It made sense that she'd have to tell him eventually.

"I'll talk to you later, okay?" Emily reassured her again.

"Yes. Thank you so much." Chloe said again, opening the door and heading out.

"Bye, Chloe." Emily stepped up and shut the door, pausing with her back to Hotch.

"So," Hotch said, slowly, breaking the silence.

Emily took a deep breath. "I was going to tell you at some stage." She spun around and faced him, but she still wouldn't look him in the eye.

"So it's true?" Hotch's eyes bore into hers.

"Yes. I wouldn't lie about something like that." Emily muttered.

"What happened?" Hotch asked.

Emily walked past him and sat down on the lounge, drinking the glass of water Chloe hadn't touched. "I was, uh, in Rome. I wanted to fit in, what teenager doesn't. I moved around a lot, didn't really have many friends. So, I went to lots of parties, hung out with the wrong crowd for a while. I got pregnant. I was fifteen, yeah, so I got an abortion. That's why I owed Matthew so much. He helped me, he held my hand while it happened. I told the local priest what happened and he effectively disowned me. Matthew got the church to accept me again. He helped me get my life back on track.”

"So that's why you wanted to find who had killed him so badly. I'm sorry, I didn’t know." Hotch stood next to her.

"It's okay." Emily sniffled. "I've moved on. Matthew really helped me, if I'd told my mother she would have killed me." She chuckled lightly.

"You should have told me."

"Look. I'm ashamed of it. I would have been a sixteen-year-old teen mum. In Italy. The daughter of an ambassador. That would have been utterly terrible for them. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to think I was… a slut or something." Emily stared at the floor.

"I don't think that. I'd never think that." Hotch muttered.

"Still. I only told Rossi. That's because he sort of guessed it." Emily shrugged.

Hotch pulled a face. "How do you guess someone was pregnant as a teen?"

Emily laughed, and it made Hotch smile. "I don't even know." They smiled for a moment before Emily spoke up again. “The father… he never spoke to me after that night. I tried to talk to him once or twice at school but he ignored me. It was all just fun and games for him.” she tried to shrug it off slightly but he could tell it had affected her.

“He sounds like an asshole.”

Emily laughed again, the sound soft as she wiped the remaining tears out of her eyes. “He really was. But then again, I guess that not all of us marry our high school girlfriend and live happily ever after.”

Hotch’s face fell. “It wasn’t happily ever after. Clearly that’s why not many people do it.”

Emily looked up as she heard the change in his tone, standing quickly. “Oh, I’m so sorry Hotch, I didn’t mean it like that- I was joking, I’m so sorry about Haley…” 

She rambled but he cut her off. “I know. I know, don’t worry. It just… sucks, you know?”

“Yeah.” Emily chuckled, pulling him down to sit beside her. They both sat there, the silence wasn’t awkward, it was comfortable. “I’m sorry for bringing up Haley like that. And I’m sorry for being so annoyed with you earlier, I think I’m just moody today.” she smiled wryly.

“It’s okay,” Hotch replied simply.

“It’s just sort of weird adjusting to living with someone again, not that I don’t enjoy it.” Emily shrugged.

“Yeah, same here. Living with Jack full time again is strange but he’s like a really small bundle of joy so I get you. He wakes me up at 5 am sometimes.” Hotch rolled his eyes and Emily laughed again. He loved her laugh, it was really honest and sweet.

"I'm also sorry I didn't tell you. About… when I was younger. God, I need to apologise for a disappointingly high amount of things." Emily winced.

"It’s okay, it's in the past." Hotch could tell she was slightly uncomfortable with talking about it so he changed the subject. "Should we book Chloe's appointment now?"

“Yep. We can call up Garcia and get her to book her in early so that everything goes smoothly. Maybe we could get the bureau to pay, tell them it’s crucial to gain a view into the group.” 

Hotch chuckled. “I doubt that’ll work but it’s worth a shot. Otherwise, you’d better get Garcia to find one within your budget.”

“Damn…”

* * *

"Alright, which one's the teen mum?" Morgan's voice came through the earpieces.

"Don't call her that, Morgan." Emily was quick to correct him. She knew he was only teasing, but still. She would hate it if people had talked about her like that.

"Sorry. Where's, uh, Chloe?"

"She's the one with the blonde hair, I think she was wearing a blue sweater this morning." Hotch described her from memory. Emily nodded beside him. 

Morgan looked up, glancing at the group for a second before looking back down again. "Two with blonde hair, only one with a sweater, got her." They could hear Morgan fiddling with the newspaper in front of him.

Morgan was on the ground, following the gang to get an idea for how they spent their time. Anything they did that could be linked to the murders would help. Hotch and Emily were in the living room, Emily sitting on the floor with her back against the couch and Hotch on the couch next to her head. Penelope, JJ, Reid and Rossi were back in Quantico, all connected to Morgan with an earpiece. There was a skype call going between Quantico and Hotch and Emily's apartment as they listened in.

"What are they doing, hot stuff?" Garcia's teasing voice filled their ears.

Morgan clicked his tongue. "Well, mama, the other girls are dragging Chloe over to the boys. Emily, your girl doesn't look too keen to go, she keeps shaking her head."

Emily nervously bit her nail. Hotch touched her shoulder. "She'll be okay." He whispered. Emily nodded nervously, not quite believing him.

"One more time for the rest of us, bossman?" 

"Nothing." Hotch sat back, his signature blank expression on his face.

Rossi rolled his eyes. "You know, you two have enough time alone on this op, you'd think you could stop whispering to each other during the small five minutes we get to talk to you."

Emily glared at him. "Shut up, Dave."

"You know, you guys are awfully distracting for people who are meant to be helping me stalk some teens." Morgan sounded exasperated, but they could all hear the grin in his voice. 

"Sorry sugar." Garcia cheerily replied.

"Princess, what did Chloe say she was going to say to them today?"

"She was going to tell them that she wants to leave the gang. So, what we're really looking for is their reaction to it. Like, if they were normal then they’d be sad but accepting-”

“If something is going on beneath the surface then they’ll try to get her to stay, they won’t take no for an answer, they might be threatening et cetera.” Reid interrupted. Emily shot her best glare through the screen.

“Ok.” Morgan sipped his coffee and bit into his toast. Everyone through the earpieces heard it.

“Ew, Morgan, that’s disgusting.”

“Baby boy, please refrain in future.”

“Morgan, every single thing that you do with your mouth we can hear because the technology has become so advanced over the past fifteen to seventeen years that the microphones used for earpieces by the FBI, CIA and numerous other spy and police departments are now able to detect almost everything that happens and send it through in crystal clear detail-”

“Don’t tell me to pretend to be having breakfast in a cafe and expect me not to eat anything.” Morgan rolled his eyes, interrupting Reid’s ramble. The genius pouted.

“You would be terrible undercover,” JJ said in an exasperated voice. 

“Excuse me, has anyone noticed me? No- the waitress is looking at me weirdly, I think she’s wondering why I keep talking to myself,” he muttered the last bit.

Hotch rolled his eyes. “Why was it decided that you would be the one on surveillance?”

“Rossi’s too old-”

“Am not!”

“Reid has no subtlety, JJ needs to stay back there in case of news reporters or other people wanting stories, my fair lady has to do techie stuff and… yep, that’s everyone. So that leaves me.”

“Who arguably looks like the most obvious FBI agent here.” Hotch deadpanned.

“Yeah, Hotch, I can see why we were picked for this op.” Emily laughed.

“Actually, I’ve studied the manual on proper surveillance techniques eighteen times since this call started and I think that the most suited would be JJ and Hotch because they are both the most professional, Emily has a tendency to bite her nails and she is the most likely to blow their cover by accidentally calling him Hotch not Aaron as well as by complaining about how much effort it takes to be a school teacher.”

“Hold it, genius, no need to showcase all of my flaws. Besides, if JJ was here, who would be there to babysit the rest of you. You can’t send the two most professional agents away because who would be left.” Emily raised her eyebrows.

“I’m responsible!”

“Sorry, pretty boy, but she’s right.”

“Besides, Reid, surely you wouldn’t actually want JJ to be dating Hotch, even if it was fake, right?” Emily teased.

JJ poked her tongue out at her best friend. “Says you. How’s it going in that one bed apartment?”

Emily went bright red and didn’t say anything, refusing to turn around and look at Hotch. “Look, as much as I hate to interrupt this interrogation, Chloe and the gang have finally united.” Morgan interrupted. Emily sighed in relief. JJ and Rossi smirked at Emily. Hotch cleared his throat.

“Alright. What are they saying to Chloe?” Rossi asked, back to business.

“She looks nervous. She hasn’t said anything yet.”

"How about-" Emily started.

"Oh, wait, the group's gathering around now, but Alessio is talking. They all look excited except for Chloe. Now they're moving."

"Where are-" Emily tried again.

"Wait, Chloe just called them all back in again." Emily rolled her eyes, giving up on having any input in this conversation. Hotch laughed quietly. "She's speaking, and all the others are just staring at her. Except for Justin. He looks somewhat accepting."

"Can you find out what they're saying?" JJ asked.

"They're standing near the bin, I'll go and put my coffee cup in there." They could hear Morgan's chair screech slightly against the pavement as he stood up. 

The kid’s voices came through. "What do you mean?" Teagan frowned.

"I want to leave," Chloe said again, more boldly.

"You can't leave." Lucas stared at her.

"I am."

Alessio chuckled. "Well, sweet thing, I'm afraid it doesn't quite work like that." He pronounced each word slowly and carefully.

Emily swallowed. This wasn't going to end well and by the looks of everyone else in the BAU's faces, they knew as well.

"They're leaving now, walking off down the path," Morgan said, the smile gone from his voice.

"Can you follow them?" JJ asked.

"Yep. Hold on, they're going into an alleyway now. It's off West street, next to the Spanish Restaurant. Miguel's."

Garcia typed it into the computer, her fingers quick. "Got it. Seems dodgy enough, my sweet pea."

"Wait for them to come out," Hotch told him. Emily nervously picked at her nails.

"Sure boss."

The minutes ticked by and Emily's nervous fidgeting got so bad that Hotch had to move to sit on the floor next to Emily so that he could hold her hand tightly in his. She squeezed it gratefully. The call was silent and if the rest of the team noticed, they didn't comment.

"Can you, uh, go in now?" Garcia said quietly, her voice worried. "They could be hurting her or something."

"Sure mama." Morgan clearly thought the same as Garcia or he wouldn't have agreed so readily. The team listened anxiously as he walked in. JJ and Garcia jumped as the sound of Morgan kicking a bag of what seemed like glass bottles filled their earpieces. "They're gone."

"Damn it." Rossi cursed under his breath in Italian.

"Where could they have gone?" JJ asked.

"The alleyway loops back onto the main street but you would have lost them by now." Garcia glared at the map on her computer as if it was somehow its fault.

"They'll come back. They can't just disappear like that." Reid nodded.

But maybe they could.

* * *

"So... We just wait?" Emily flopped down on the bed dramatically, her hair splashing out across the pillow behind her.

Hotch walked in after her and pulled his jacket off, chucking it onto the back of the dresser chair. "I guess. It doesn't really seem like we can do much more, does it? Besides, it's late, we should probably sleep."

"We can take it in turns? I'll sleep first, you sleep second? That way we can watch for when they get home and also get enough sleep." Emily suggested. She pulled off her boots and curled up on the pillows.

"You should sleep first. You seem tired." Hotch suggested, sitting down on the other side of the bed.

Emily shrugged. "Nah, it's fine. You can sleep first. I'm too worried to sleep."

Hotch shook his head. "You need to relax and sleep, Emily. You can't run on coffee forever."

Emily pouted. "Says who?"

"Em." Hotch raised his eyebrows pointedly at her.

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll make you a deal. I'll set an alarm for three hours, you sleep, then we swap." He opened his mouth to complain but she cut him off with a grin. "No buts. Sleep."

"Two hours." Hotch compromised.

"Fine. Sleep. Now." He glared at her and then rolled over and faced the other way. She watched him. "You're not even gonna get changed?"

"No. This is comfy enough." 

"I have seen you sleep in suits so I guess that's fair." Emily shrugged, curling up on her side with a book on her lap.

They both faced away from each other, back to back. She heard his breaths even out as he fell asleep. Emily chanced a glance over her shoulder and couldn't help but smile. He'd curled up under the blankets with his head on top of his arm. He looked so content she almost considered turning off the alarm and just letting him sleep, but then her own selfish want to sleep caused her to roll over and read again.

It was quiet and peaceful for the next hour or so. Emily had read a decent amount of her book, a recommendation from Morgan when she heard Hotch mutter something in his sleep. "Jack. Foyet. Haley." He muttered, his voice barely audible. "Emily. Emily!" He said the last bit louder and she instantly discarded her book, rolling over to look at him. 

His hair was messy and he was sweating slightly. He kicked out to the side like he was fighting invisible demons.

Emily grabbed his arm, leaning down to look at him closely. "Hotch. Hotch, it's okay." Her voice was filled with worry.

His eyes flew open and he grabbed her arm tightly. "Is Jack okay?"

"Yes, he's with Jessica." She reassured him.

"Are," he broke off swallowing. His eyes were frantic. It scared her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah Hotch, I'm fine. What's wrong? Everything's okay." Emily rubbed her hand up and down his arm.

"I thought something had happened to Jack. Or you. What if something happened- I can't protect you or him-" his breathing was frantic.

Emily smoothed back his hair before sitting beside him and pulling him close, his head on her chest over her heart. He was restless so ran her fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead twice. "Ssh. It's okay. I'm here, I'm safe. Jack's safe."

"I just hurt everyone I love. Haley's death was my fault. Now Jack will never get to see his mother again." Hotch muttered, his forehead warm.

"You might have a fever. And it's not your fault, Hotch. Foyet was a," she paused. "I can't even think of an insult that will show how shit he was. You're Jack's hero, and Haley doesn't blame you. She knew what she was getting into and she sacrificed herself to save your son."

"I hurt everyone." He murmured again. 

Emily kissed his forehead again, his head resting on her chest. "No, you don't. We chose to be your friends regardless of the consequences. So shush. Don't push people away because of that because we'd all out ourselves on the line for you. I'd put my life on the line for you."

"You'll only get hurt, you'll regret it. Please Emily, get out while you can." Hotch whispered.

"No. No, please stop saying that. I'm safe. I'll always be safe, because of you." Emily whispered back.

"But-"

"No buts. Try to sleep, Aaron." 

"When I close my eyes I only see you hurt. Or Jack." Hotch's voice was rough, sleep-filled.

Emily breathed in deeply, slowly. "You can hear my heartbeat, yeah? Just focus on that. It's okay." His head readjusted on her chest, right over her heart where he could hear her steady heartbeat. One of her hands played through his hair while the other was wrapped around his torso. She didn't let her mind focus on how muscular he seemed underneath his shirt but instead on trying to make him as calm and as comfortable as possible. She curled up behind him and kissed him three times on the only part of his face she could reach, the side of his cheek. She didn't know why she kissed him like that but she couldn't tell it was calming him down. It was like second nature. 

As they curled up there, she couldn't help herself from reaching behind her and turning off the alarm. She would put off sleep for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't like this chapter, it's actually one of the first chapters of this story that I wrote and it's definitely not one of my favourites :( stick with me though, hopefully the next chapter will be better lmao


	8. Part 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter but the next one is long so yeah

“Em. Em, wake up.” her eyes opened slowly, her vision slightly blurry as she blinked.

Hotch sat on the edge of the bed next to her, his hand on her shoulder gently shaking her awake. Emily rolled onto her back and stretched, yawning slightly. His eyes strayed to her exposed midriff for a second before flicking back to her face.

“Come on, we’ve got to get going.” he said.

Emily frowned as she sat up, tucking her legs close to her chest as she peered at him. “What?”

“You need to get dressed.”

“What? Hotch, it’s-” her blurry eyes squinted at the clock next to her. “7:39am. What’s the rush?”

“Something happened. We need to get moving.”

“But it’s a saturday…” Emily whined, but the serious look in his eyes made her sigh and climb out of bed. “Fine, you’d better make me coffee though. What happened?”

“I don’t know but Reid said it’s serious.”

“Another body?”

“Could be. Your guess is as good as mine.” he disappeared from the room into the kitchen as Emily pulled on leggings and a t-shirt. It looked cold outside.

He handed her her coffee in a travel mug as she walked out of the bedroom, clearly they didn’t have enough time to hang around and leisurely have breakfast. His hand was on the small of her back as they walked down the flights of stairs to get downstairs, and she stumbled a little, still half asleep.

His hand grabbed her waist quickly, helping her stand. “Careful.” he murmured.

She nodded. “Thanks.”

They continued their fast paced walk, looking like any normal couple going down to the beach for an early morning stroll. Neither of them said anything but the butterflies in Emily’s stomach got bigger as she analysed what they’d been told. The rest of the BAU had never called a meeting when another victim was found, something must be significant about this one. Maybe it was someone important, say a cop's daughter, or someone who didn’t match the original victimology, like someone blonde or popular. A cheerleader maybe. Or maybe the victim didn’t match the age range or gender preference previously exhibited. Maybe they were killed differently.

It didn’t really matter what was different, Emily realised. If something had made their unsub or unsubs change, it could be dangerous. They could be devolving.

“Excuse me Sir, Ma’am, do you two have a moment to talk about the environment?” Emily turned around quickly, already on high alert but then had to hide her smile when she saw who it was. Reid stood there with an eco friendly, green cap pulled down over his messy hair, green t-shirt and jeans looking very different to how they normally saw him.

“Sure.” Hotch nodded. He didn’t smile, his face was it’s normal blank canvas but she knew he was happy to see the genius.

“Somewhere between 15-17% of the Amazon has been cleared…” Reid broke off as the people walking around them were out of earshot.

“What happened?” Emily asked, making sure to keep a smile on her face for anyone who might be watching.

“There’s been another death.”

“We figured as much.” Hotch nodded.

“This one was different thought.”

“We also figured that much.”

JJ sighed over Reid’s earpiece. “Is there anything those two haven’t figured out yet?” she mumbled. He smirked.

“Who’s listening?” Emily asked, cocking her head to the side.

“JJ, Morgan, Rossi, Garcia.” Emily nodded.

“So what was different?” Hotch asked.

“The victimology was very different.”

“Let me guess,” Rossi started. “They had already figured that out.”

“Judging by her body language, Emily had already figured out that bit of information.” Reid rambled.

Emily scoffed. “Damn right I did.”

Hotch rolled his eyes. “Back on track, give us the information quickly. There is only so long we can pretend to be interested in… the various different bird species at risk in the Amazon.” he read off Reid’s pamphlet.

“I’ll have you know that there are lots of different bird species at risk of losing their habitats if we keep up the rate that we are clearing the rainforest-”

Morgan cleared his throat. JJ grinned. “I told you he’d be the right person for the job.”

“The victim attended Hazel Beach High. She was 17, decently smart but didn’t quite have the grade average to fit in with the other victims. She was blonde-”

“Blonde?” all the other victims had been brunettes.

“Blonde, and she was popular, hanging out with the self proclaimed ‘cool kids’, dating a jock, et cetera.” 

“That’s like a full 180.” Emily theorised.

“Actually, a full 180 would make her a blonde, popular lady in her 60’s who didn’t attend Hazel Beach High, didn’t live in the area, wasn’t found in the same places and was st-” he broke off at the looks both of the undercover agents were giving him. He cleared his throat. “But figuratively speaking, yes, it’s essentially a full 180.”

“Who was it?” Hotch asked. “The victim, I mean.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. It strays a lot from our original thoughts here.” Reid swallowed, looking Emily right in the eyes. “It was Chloe Taw.”

Pregnant, leaving the gang, Chloe Taw.

* * *

Emily walked around like a ghost for the rest of that day. Anyone would think she was fine but to Hotch’s eye, trained to read people, well practiced in reading Emily, it was obvious that something was wrong. He knew what was wrong. He knew what was affecting her. 

He didn’t know how to help.

All he wanted to do was wrap her up in his arms and hold her tight but given their current relationship, that didn’t exactly seem fitting.

He was hovering, he knew that. But the fact that she didn’t tell him off showed how she really wasn’t alright.

“Come on, Em, let’s watch a movie.” he said, patting the couch beside him.

She shook her head slightly as she turned the dishwasher on. “I think I’ll get an early night, Aaron, if that’s alright.”

_ Aaron. _

“It’s not alright.” Hotch said before he could talk himself out of it.

“I’m sorry?” Emily wasked, clearly taken aback

“It’s not your fault, please just sit down.”

He didn’t have to say what he was talking about. “Hotch, I just want time to think and sleep.”

“But that’s exactly what you don’t need. So sit down, watch a movie, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

Had anyone else said this, she would have retaliated loudly, probably with some harsh words and yelling. She  _ did _ still retaliate but silently, by sitting down next to him and stubbornly glaring at the tv. He rolled his eyes at her and handed her the remote. They ended up watching some trashy soap opera but Hotch didn’t mind because every so often she would smile or laugh quietly and he knew his plan to distract her had succeeded.

The couch was small so when she inevitably fell asleep, her head landed on his shoulder. Her breathing was soft and even when he looked down at her, brushing her hair back from her face and reaching blindly for the blanket behind her, his eyes not leaving her. He draped the blanket across her and just stayed there, tv quiet in the background, content with her.

It wasn’t the first time she’d slept on his shoulder and he hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

* * *

_ Seven months earlier... _

The case had gone on for two weeks. It had been long and hard, they hadn’t had a breakthrough until at least day eleven. So that was a week and a half of watching victims appear without them evening knowing that those people were missing in the first place. Twelve people had been killed. Twelve. One dozen.

They were all tired. Reid, JJ and Emily sat on the couch, going over some reports in a low murmur. Morgan sat in one of the stand alone seats, listening to music and staring out the window, lost in thought. Rossi was drinking a scotch and thinking while Hotch sat opposite him and flicked through some files.

At some stage the girls voices faded out but no one really noticed until Reid spoke up. “Uh, guys? Help?”

Hotch and Rossi looked over and matching grins appeared on their faces. Morgan pulled his headphones off and turned around, laughing at the sight. “Well, pretty boy, it looks like you have a bit of a situation there.”

Reid glared at his friend. “Not helping, Morgan.” Emily and JJ were both leaning against a shoulder each, their eyes shut, fast asleep. Reid sat perfectly still, looking at them both awkwardly, completely lost for what to do in this situation.

Rossi chuckled. “I vote we leave him there.”

“It’ll teach him how to handle girls.” Hotch nodded.

“Please?”

“Only after I get a photo.” Morgan stood up. “Smile, Reid. Or kiss one of their heads. This is gonna be my wallpaper.”

“Morgan…” Reid whined.

“Okay, okay, which one should I take?”

“Emily.” Rossi suggested. “Leaving him with JJ will be more awkward.”

Morgan grinned. “I like the way you think, old man.” then he paused, looking around the jet. “Where do I move her to? Hotch, can I move her to the one next to you?”

Hotch sighed, watching Emily for a second, careful not to be caught staring. “I’ll just take her, Morgan.”

“Well, well, well,” Rossi smirked as the unit chief stood up. “This just got a bit more interesting.”

“Shut up, Dave.”

Morgan sat down again and Reid smiled gratefully up at Hotch. “Thank you.”

Hotch rolled his eyes at the genius, crouching down in front of Emily. “Emily, wake up.” he said as he gently shook her shoulder. 

She shifted slightly, opening her eyes a little bit. “Hotch?”

“I’m just going to move you, don’t wake up fully.” He wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her to her feet. She stumbled against him, rubbing her eyes, clearly confused and still half asleep. Carefully, Hotch guided her across the small cabin to where he had been sitting, sliding in first to the end seat and then pulling her down to sit again on the seat beside him. She was still clutching his arm when he removed his hand from her waist and she used her grip to pull him closer to her so she could lay her head on his shoulder, hugging his arm as she sighed contently.

Whether it was her sleep hazed mind or whether she was consciously doing it, he couldn’t tell.

But he stared at her until Rossi snorted with laughter. Hotch instantly looked away, caught. “What’s so funny?”

Rossi shook his head. “You two.”

Hotch shot him a confused look and then went back to reading his case files, only pausing to brush Emily’s hair back from her eyes when it fell to cover them. The cabin was silent again. He never wanted the plane to land.

“So who wants to take JJ?”

“Just hug her, pretty boy.”

“What?!”

* * *

“This is Hazel Beach Police Department, please stop by the police station as soon as you’re available for questioning related to a recent crime. Thank you.” The beep showed the end of the message. 

Emily looked up from the table. “What was that?”

“We need to go down to the station for questioning. Probably about Chloe’s murder.” Hotch supplied, bringing over some toast.

Emily nodded slowly. “Why us? We didn’t find the body or anything. What’s the cover for bringing us in there?”

“I’m assuming they’ll say it’s because we live in her apartment building and they want to know if we saw anything.”

She shot him a look. “Did they tell you that already?”

“No. That’s just what I would say.” Hotch shrugged.

“Sounds about right.” Emily bit into her toast. “We’ll go after breakfast?”

“Sure.”

They walked in there about an hour later and got shown to the detectives room. Rossi sat with Agent Redfield. Emily and Hotch sat down across from them. “Hi.” Emily started.

“Good morning. I’m Agent Marly Redfield, FBI’s Norfolk Field Office and this is Agent David Rossi, from the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit in Quantico. We are here to talk about the recent murder of Chloe Taw.”

They knew they had to act surprised. “Chloe Taw? Oh God, Chloe…” Emily gasped. Hotch grabbed her hand and he could tell that neither she or Rossi expected that.

Rossi looked outside and checked that no one was close enough to hear them. He moved closer, his eyes trained on the bullpen outside.

“Okay. So. Here’s the deal. As you were already informed, Chloe Taw was murdered the day before yesterday. She’s completely different from the rest of the victims. Your team thinks that-”

“The rest of the gang killed her when she said she wanted to leave.” Rossi interrupted. Agent Redfield glared at him.

“That fits the profile.” Hotch nodded. Emily couldn’t draw her mind away from how he didn’t let go of her hand.

“Exactly. The lab just got back to us and we found-”

“Evidence. Fingerprints which we found that match Alessio’s. All over the crime scene.”

“You had his fingerprints on file?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, he was arrested for fighting in the streets a while back.” Redfield told her.

“They’re devolving.” Hotch said suddenly.

“What?” Emily asked.

“The fingerprints. They’ve never left anything behind before. They’ve killed one of their own and left evidence. They’re reaching an end game.” Hotch elaborated.

“So what do we do?”

“We… we can’t do anything. We’re bringing them all in today for questioning, we’ll see if we can get anything out of them. This op should be ending soon though.” Redfield informed them.

Emily nodded. “That’s good…”

Hotch mirrored her gesture. Because it was good. They’d almost caught the unsubs. They could almost go back, him to Jack, her to Sergio.

But he couldn’t think of how to get by without seeing her each day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll post the next chapter on Christmas? Maybe?


	9. Part 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas 🎄angsty, climatic chapter coming up haha

Emily was really tired. 

Who would have guessed that being a high school language teacher would be so hard? Or maybe it was just hard when you had to be a teacher, a job you had no training for, and then go and spy on all of the kids in your apartment building to make sure that they weren’t killing other kids at their school for some sort of messed up ritual. Oh, and the guy that you’re beginning to realise you have feelings for is posing as your boyfriend and being way too sweet on a permanent basis and it’s killing you that you can’t be together.

Yeah, that actually makes sense when you put it like that.

Emily ran a hand through her hair, her lips opening and closing silently as she mouthed the words on the Italian paper she was grading in front of her. Hotch was down at the beach, it was four pm on a Saturday. She was meant to meet him down there in half an hour, his shift ended at five. She was imagining an afternoon of walking along the beach and talking, then they’d go to the restaurant on the headland and he’d be embarrassed when she knew what all the fancy foods on the menu were and had to explain them to him. Then they’d finish eating, he’d insist on paying because he was raised a gentleman, and then they’d walk back down the beach towards their apartment. Maybe, if the night was warm, they’d stop at the little carnival near the pier and he’d kiss her at the top of the Ferris Wheel… yeah right, like that would happen. 

_ Mi piacciono la primavera e l’estate, ma non mi piace l’inverno. Fa troppo freddo.  _ Emily placed a small red tick next the sentence her new year 9 Italian student, Sara, had written. She had potential. 

Marking the paper with a careful A and an 18.5/20 score, she placed the paper on top of the growing stack and yawned, stretching out across the lounge. She could have easily gone to sleep right then, but she’d promised Hotch that she’d meet him there so she stood up and walked into the bedroom, intent on looking nice. She caught sight of herself in the mirror. Grey sweats, a black singlet, hair in a messy craze around her head. No wonder he wasn’t interested. 

She picked up her hairbrush off the dresser and walked towards the wardrobe while she slowly ran it through her dark hair. Emily flicked through the clothes in there, most were unworn, apparently, she needed a whole new wardrobe for this operation. She found a pretty maroon sundress, it had tiny white flowers on the print, and held it up against herself. Good enough. She had sandals that would match it and would just wear her hair out, with a white shoulder bag. She got dressed and then hesitated over her makeup. This wasn’t a date, she hadn’t even convinced him that they should eat out, so she needed to look casual. How she normally would if she was meeting a  _ friend  _ at the beach. She didn’t use it.

It was half-past five when she was ready. Emily grinned at her reflection before quickly finding her keys and unlocking the front door, stepping out and almost walking straight into Lilliana and Teagan. They took a step back, clearly having been about to knock.

“Hi, Lilliana. Hi, Teagan. What’s up?” Emily blinked, looking closely at the two teenagers in front of her. Lilliana’s black hair was in braids over her shoulders and she wore jeans and a lace tank top while Teagan wore a hoodie and denim shorts with her blonde hair in a messy bun on the top of her head. 

The two girls exchanged a look, hesitated and then started talking over the top of each other. “Miss! You have to help Steph!”

“Alessio has taken her!”

“We think he is behind the murders!”

“He took her down to the basement!”

“We would have told our mums but they’re not home-”

“They always tell us to talk to our teachers about problems-”

Emily raised her eyebrows before snapping into action. “Steph? Steph Finchley?” the two girls nodded. “How do you get to the basement?”

“I’ll show you!” Lilliana exclaimed, turning around and rushing down the stairs. Emily hesitated, she should call Hotch, or go inside and get her gun-

“Hurry, Miss!” Teagan cried. 

“I’m coming, let’s go.” Emily rushed down the stairs after the girls. Every second she wasted, Steph could be getting tortured by Alessio. She had to hurry if she wanted to save the girl from the same fate as the others. It had been Alessio all along.

And that was her last thought before something hard hit her in the back of the head and she stumbled, hitting her head on the banister with a thud as the world went black.

* * *

Hotch pulled off his shirt in the changerooms in the block near the beach. His shift had been over for half an hour now and Emily was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t like her to be late. He checked his phone. No new messages. It wasn’t like her not to call him. He sighed and scrolled through his contacts. He knew that she was probably just held up with school work, but her lack of appearance made him feel uncomfortable. 

He’d been looking forward to this afternoon. After a day of sitting in the sun, getting four false calls by teenage girls who just wanted him to come over so they could inspect him and decide if he was hot or not (they decided that he was, of course) and rushing out to a presumably drowning tourist only to discover that they were panicking in waist-deep water, he’d had to keep telling himself that when his shift ended he’d get to see her, his…  _ friend _ . That was enough to keep him working. 

Hotch pushed the familiar number on his phone and waited while it dialled. Nothing. It wasn’t like Emily to not pick up her phone. The uncomfortable feeling got stronger. He tried again, and then tried their home phone. 

“Hi, you’ve reached Emilia and Aaron, please leave a message after the beep!” Emily’s voice laughed down the line, the message that they’d recorded on the third day clear and flashing him back to the time that they’d sat on the lounge to record that. She couldn’t stop laughing whenever she said Emilia, they’d had to keep re-recording the message. Her eyes would light up and her smile would grow wide. He couldn’t stop the smile that crept to his face at the memory.

The smile faded quickly as worry began to seep back into his brain. He shouldn’t be this protective. It was so stupid. He was so overbearing, she and every other person that he cared about probably hated that part of him. But-

“Hello, Bossman. What are you wearing?” Penelope’s joking voice filled his ear as the line connected.

He frowned. “Not now, Garcia. I need you to trace Emily- Prentiss’ phone. Now.” He added.

“Aren’t you with her?” Garcia asked. He could hear the click of keys on a keyboard through the phone line.

“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be asking.” Hotch sarcastically said.

“She’s at your apartment building. Can I ask why you want to know?” Penelope sat back in her chair.

“I’ve got to go. See you.” Hotch hung up the phone before she could get another word out. Emily was at their home. It was okay.

He slowly packed up and walked down the few streets to get back to the apartment block. The streets were quiet and the sun was still high in the sky. He buzzed their apartment from the ground floor, like a guest would, even though he had a key. He just really needed to hear her voice, to satisfy himself that she was okay.

There wasn’t an answer.

He unlocked the door and started running up the stairs two at a time. He was actually hoping for the embarrassment of opening the door and worrying and then finding her asleep on the lounge. He hoped for that, imagining her hair splayed across the pillow and her breaths slow and even. The lamp would be on and she’d have assessments spread on her lap, some would probably even be on the floor. She’d be embarrassed that she fell asleep and stood him up, but then she’d start laughing and that would make him laugh. 

But the lamp wasn’t on. There weren’t any papers on the ground. And she wasn’t on the lounge.

* * *

The first sensation Emily felt as she regained consciousness was pain. Something was cutting into her neck. She felt blood dripping down her throat. She went to push it away but her hands pulled up short as the ropes tying them to the metal chair she was sitting on pulled taunt. Her eyes snapped open. Two green eyes stared into hers. She flinched back instantly but found she was tied around the waist as well. A cloth covered her mouth. The ropes dug into her wrists, torso and ankles. It was dark.

“Good to see you’re finally awake, Emilia. Or should I say, Emily? Emily Prentiss. F. B. I.” Alessio sounded out the letters with large pauses in between for effect. Emily didn’t say anything. She couldn’t say anything. Her eyes scanned the room though.

It looked like they were in the basement, or maybe some sort of boiler room. It was hot and humid, her hair stuck to the back of her neck. The kids lined the side of the room. Lilliana watched them cautiously, Teagan seemed bored, chewing gum with an uninterested expression, Lucas looked annoyed at how she wasn’t screaming or anything and Justin looked slightly put off by the sight, if anything a little sorry for her. Alessio pushed the blade deeper into her neck and she shot her eyes back to him. He kept pushing the knife more, slowly until her eyes began to water, but she didn’t say anything. Hotch would come and save her. She knew he would. He always did. He noticed the slight watering of her eyes and drew the knife away. She pulled a face as he roughly pulled the gag out of her mouth and yanked it down around her neck. Her mouth tasted like blood. 

It was temporary relief before he grabbed the back of her hair and yanked her head back. She resisted the urge to spit in his face. It would only anger him more. “What’s your boyfriend's name?” he spat.

“Aaron. Howington.” She said between breaths. Alessio pulled her hair tighter and flicked the knife easily between his hands. She swallowed but didn’t say anything.

“Answer me!” Alessio yelled. 

“You won’t kill me. I don’t fit your type.” Emily croaked. She knew she had to keep him talking. 

Alessio smirked, pressing the knife against her neck again, parallel to the still bleeding cut. “Wanna bet on it?” She breathed in sharply as the blade cut into her skin again. “We kill those girls because God commands it. I can kill you just because I feel like it.” 

“Uh, hurry up, Alessio. I don’t have time to hang around while you flirt with this slut.” Lucas rolled his eyes. Emily tried to channel as much of her anger into her glare.

“Unless you want to get arrested, Lucas, you can shut up while I dispose of this government agent and her  _ boyfriend,” _ Alessio said that last word sarcastically like he knew it was all a lie. The reminder that it was a lie hurt more than the two cuts and the knife to her neck. 

“Whatever.” Teagan rolled her eyes. 

“Why did you have to kill those girls? They were innocent, sweet girls. They didn’t have to die.” Emily whispered.

The knife pressed harder. “We do as God asks. I have dreams, we all do. He tells us the kind of person we need to kill, and how to kill them. We do that. You’ll go to hell. We’ll go to heaven. For such a smart girl, you’re pretty dumb.”

“That’s not what God would want. He wants peace, not war. Love, not hate. Life, not death.” Emily attempted to reason with him. Hotch will come, Hotch will come, Hotch will come.

“That’s a common belief, yes. But how many people who follow those rules have spoken to God?” Alessio narrowed his eyes at her.

“The sixth commandment.” Emily tried a different tactic. “You shall not murder.”

“That is way more than twenty thousand years old. I think it’s safe to say that’s a bit outdated by now.”

“Lilliana. Your dad is a surgeon. He spends his life-saving others. How would he react if he knew what you’ve been doing? He would be horrified.” Emily closed her eyes as the blade cut into her neck. Blood dripped down her chest.

“That’s why he doesn’t know. And he’ll never know. Duh.” Lilliana rolled her eyes.

Emily turned her head back to Alessio, looking into his eyes without blinking. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Are you afraid of dying?”

“No. Because I know that if you kill me, Aaron will arrest you without a second thought.” Tears glistened in her eyes as he roughly yanked her hair again. “You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

He leaned real close and whispered. “I wouldn’t talk so much, you’ve lost a lot of blood so I’d be saving oxygen if I were you.” She glared at him, the tension between them so thick you could cut through it. He smirked after a moment. “You know… you’re really quite pretty. I bet that boyfriend doesn’t do you like I could. Like I will.” One of his hands traced down her face, then her hip and towards her breasts.

She was seething now. She tried to squirm and pull away but her hands were still tied down. She distantly noticed the rope around her left hand cutting into her wrist. More blood dripped down her arm and neck. “You’re disgusting.”

“You won’t think that when I’m done with you.” He muttered.

“Get away from her right now.” Hotch’s cold tone cut through the room. His gun was pointed towards Alessio, his hand steady. 

“Make me.” Alessio cockily said, his hand leaving her body to push the knife back against her throat as he stood behind her. 

Hotch swallowed visibly as he noticed the cuts on her neck and wrists. “Put the knife down.”

“You think you’re so smart. We’re gonna kill you two and then as many more girls as God commands.” Alessio had begun to dig the knife into the same first cut on Emily’s neck.

Hotch saw her flinch and stepped forwards. “I swear, God help you, if you touch so much as one more hair on her head, I will kill you and everyone else in your little gang before you even have time to make one more disgusting remark.”

Alessio stood his ground. The two men stared each other down for a moment or two. Then Alessio dug the knife a little deeper, Emily squeezed her eyes shut in pain and Hotch clicked the safety off his gun.

What happened next was a bit of a blur afterwards. Alessio moved to slice the knife across her throat as one final stand and Hotch pulled the trigger, his bullet flying quickly through the air to hit Alessio’s leg. He dropped the knife as pain flared through his leg and fell to the ground. Hotch strode forward, kicking the knife away from Emily and slapped his handcuffs on Alessio’s wrists, rougher than necessary. The four teenagers screamed and pressed themselves back against the wall, the girls crying.

Alessio’s head banged against the head. Sirens sounded upstairs and outside as the cops arrived. Hotch was still glaring at Alessio, muttering something under his throat as he harshly moved him, inconsiderate of the bullet hole in his leg.

“Hotch! Stop it!” Emily cried out from where she sat tied up. 

Hotch froze from where he was and his eyes flicked over to her for a second. Cops filled the room and Hotch left Alessio under the supervision of one before turning around to kneel down next to Emily. “Emily… Em, it’s okay.” He gently pushed his hair out of her eyes.

“Hotch…” she murmured. Her eyes were shut and her head leaned back against the chair. Tears ran down her cheeks. “Hotch,” she said again, her voice even weaker.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here. You’re going to be alright. You have to stay awake, Emily, come on. We need a medic in here now!” He yelled the last bit before his hands quickly got to work on the ropes binding her wrists and ankles. As soon as the one around her torso was released she fell against his chest and he caught her. He shrugged off his jumper and held it to the wounds on her neck which was still bleeding.

“Aaron, please…”

“Emily, you have to stay awake. Please! Don’t stop talking. Tell me about the restaurant you wanted to go to tonight.” Hotch murmured into her ear.

She smiled weakly. “How did you know about that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just tell me about it. Was it Arabic? French? Just the local pub?” He held her carefully across his lap, brushing his fingers through her hair.

“It was… Italian. It was on the headland.” Emily whispered, so low he could barely hear it.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice. Can we reschedule?” Hotch pressed the jumper more firmly to her neck.

She closed her eyes. “Yes, please. You can pay.” she murmured as her eyes closed. She barely registered Hotch stroking her hair and shaking her carefully to try and keep her awake. Emily was moved off his lap and the jumper was taken off her neck. She was placed on something, probably a stretcher and as she drifted out of consciousness again, she felt a familiar hand squeeze hers. She couldn’t find the strength to squeeze it back. Hopefully, he knew.


	10. Part 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year 🥳

_ 2 months ago _

_ Washington D.C _

The light in the small bar was dim but warm. Loud upbeat music played despite the late hour and it was full of cheerful groups of friends, dancing and drinking.

It had been a long week, a harsh case. Morgan had a sprained wrist and Reid had a cut above his eye. The unsub had been caught but not before he murdered two families and attempted to run over JJ. In short, not good.

Emily, JJ and Garcia were in the centre of the crowd, while Morgan, Reid, Hotch and Rossi sat drinking beers in the corner. Rossi watched the girls out of the corner of his eyes, checking for when the men around got too close or handsy. Then he'd know to send in the troops. Aka the other BAU boys next to him, all especially protective of one girl each. Rossi, the dad of the group, found it both endearing and the most annoying thing ever. It wasn't like they ever acted on it.

JJ wore a pink tank top and ripped jeans, her usual after-work attire. Her hair was curled in bouncy waves, courtesy of Emily who was, quote on quote,  _ a goddess with a hair curler.  _ She had a glass of red wine in her hand, exactly, who attempts to get drunk with just wine. JJ was less of a flirt than the other two and danced more with her two friends than the boys around. Occasionally she'd let a boy get close and then ditch him while his friends laughed.

Emily giggled, her hair loose and her top dipping a little lower than her normal work ones. Rossi knew Hotch had noticed. She had a beer in her hand as she sang along and teased the boys around her a little but pulled away before they got too much of an idea.

Garcia was last, wearing her usual colourful and hectic attire. Rossi knew from experience that she was following her normal way. She'd pick on one particular guy and get up nice and close until Morgan came and stole her away, jealous. Then they'd dance together flirting as always but nothing would happen. Rossi would know for certain if something happened. He prided himself on noticing shifts in behaviour. But so far none had happened.

"How are our girls doing?" Morgan asked the calm, quiet group, peering through the crowd.

"Technically speaking, they're not  _ 'our'  _ girls," Reid said matter of factly.

They ignored him.

"Drunk and happy," Rossi spoke up.

Hotch sipped his beer. He didn't say anything, but his eyes were trained on Emily, watching every move she had with the surrounding men. His face remained expressionless but Rossi could practically see his eyes assessing each man as a potential threat.

"Maybe a bit too happy…" Morgan muttered. As per usual, stage one: jealous Derek Morgan intervenes.

JJ spun around, casting a look over her shoulder. She spotted the boys watching and waved, giggling as she nudged Emily. She whispered something and gestured to the BAU men which made Emily burst out laughing. Her face was flushed and her eyes were big.

Morgan waved back and Emily blew him a kiss jokingly before turning to Garcia. Her eyes caught on Hotch for a second but she looked away. Emily said something to her blonde and cheery friend who stopped her dance battle and turned to her precious Morgan. Morgan visibly relaxed as the guy rolled his eyes and left at her sudden loss of interest.

Penelope grabbed JJ and Emily to pull them through the crowd towards the boys. "Hi!" Garcia was pretty much the same even with alcohol, the bright side in everything personality she had shining through.

Emily was slightly less… alert. That was where Hotch came in, taking her phone and driving her back to her apartment, putting aspirin and water next to her bed for the next morning before locking himself out. She had a tendency to do things without properly thinking them through. Like now, as she slid into the booth and landed a bit too close to Hotch. In her drunken state, she didn't notice the proximity. Hotch did but didn't say anything, watching her carefully to make sure she was one hundred percent okay. JJ sat next to her and Garcia sat next to Morgan. Reid was sandwiched in between Rossi and Morgan but his eyes still flicked to JJ for a second or two.

"You guys should come dance with us." JJ grinned, her eyes inviting them. 

"It'll take your mind off it. Alcohol, loud music and dancing to drown away the case." Emily giggled, sipping the beer. Hotch subtly took it off her. He knew that when she drank  _ too  _ much she got moody. She'd overanalyse the things that went wrong, the loses, the injuries, the impact it would make on the neighbourhood. He hated seeing her like that.

"I'm too old." Rossi bailed quickly, keen to just sit and observe.

Morgan smirked. "I'm all for it, baby girl. When do we start?"

"Oh my love, you just become more and more my ideal man every day." Penelope flirted back unabashedly, standing up and leading the way out of the booth.

"Come on, Dave," Emily whined. 

"Nope." Rossi nodded his head to the boys on either side of him. "Take these two."

They both instantly shook their heads but the girls clearly took it as a challenge. "Come on, Reid. Let's get some alcohol into you." JJ climbed to the other side of the booth and tried to pull him out.

"JJ, is he even old enough to drink?" Emily teased. JJ burst out laughing and Reid glared at her. "C'mon, Hotchie boy."

"Hotchie boy? You sound like Penelope." Rossi deadpanned.

Emily shrugged. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em."

Hotch shook his head as he stood up but a faint smile graced his lips. "You're not even making any sense anymore."

"Perfect," Reid muttered. "Well, I took the metro here, the girls are drunk, so I guess the rest of you are the designated drivers."

Rossi quickly downed his drink. "I'm drunk." He lied. Hotch and Reid rolled their eyes but then Emily's hand slipped into his and he forgot all about it.

She led him out to the middle, nearish where Morgan and Garcia were dancing. "C'mon." She muttered, her voice barely audible above the music.

"I can't dance, Prentiss." Hotch started.

"Only one way to learn then." Emily winked at him.

"Why do I need to know how to dance?" Hotch rolled his eyes.

"Cause otherwise I'll have to dance with someone else." She made a big show of looking at the guys around her. "Which one do your reckon is best at s-"

"Don't even finish that." Hotch interrupted. 

She grinned easily. "You're such a nerd, Hotchner." Emily bounced up and down on her toes with a smirk.

"Says you." He shot back.

The music changed suddenly and the bar felt about a million times quieter. The people on the dance floor began to gravitate towards each other as the slow dance came on. Emily raised an eyebrow at him. "Surely you know how to do this one?"

"You want to slow dance?" Hotch raised his eyebrows back.

Emily shrugged, the alcohol making her bold. "Yeah. Do you?"

Hotch nodded. "Yes."

"Okay then." Emily nodded and then slowly moved towards him, looping her hands around his neck. He placed his hands on her waist carefully. He vaguely noticed JJ dragging Reid in and Morgan and Garcia grinning at each other but then Emily's head came to rest on his chest and he forgot how to breathe.

They stayed there for what seemed like ages, swaying in time to the slow music. Her eyes were shut and her head laid on the crook of his neck. His hands on her waist lost their caution as he held her more comfortably. It was scary how right she felt in his arms. His heartbeat felt fast but slow at the same time and her breaths were even. 

Hotch had never really danced much at all in his life and slow dances were no exception. But as long as she was going to stay safe in his arms, he didn't really mind.

* * *

The room was cold.

Machines beeped steadily.

Faint voices called out to each other in the hallway.

The door opened and shut and footsteps slowly walked towards the bed.

The chair squeaked beside her.

She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes though. So she stayed still, her head back against the scratchy hospital pillow and her legs tangled in the blanket.

Someone reached for her hand and picked it up gently, intertwining their fingers in hers. Their hand was warm and larger than hers. She knew it was Hotch. He was patiently sitting there, watching her. She didn't need to open her eyes to see the forlorn expression that would be on his face.

The door opened again, and smaller steps filled the room, running towards the side of her bed. "Daddy!"

It was incredibly hard to stop her eyes from flying open to look at the little boy.

Hotch was clearly surprised to see him there. "Jack! You shouldn't be in here."

Hotch lifted Jack onto his lap and hugged his son, turning him away from where Emily lay, bruised and broken.

"Auntie Jessie dropped me off. She's waiting with Auntie JJ." Jack giggled.

Hotch shook his head. "Maybe you should wait outside until Emily is better."

"No. Is she dead.?" Jack asked quietly, his young voice sad. 

"No," Hotch quickly said. "She's just sleeping. She'll be okay."

"You promised me you'd look after her."

Emily's heart broke.

"I know I did. I tried. I'm really sorry that she got hurt. I tried to get to her and now I'm never going to let her get hurt again. I promise." Hotch muttered.

Jack hugged his dad again. "Okay. Are you going to come back now?"

"Yes. As soon as Emily is out of the hospital." Hotch said. "I'm not going to leave her again."

"Will Emi come and live with us?" Jack asked innocently. Emily's heart skipped a beat. Hopefully, it didn't show on the monitors.

"What?"

"Daniel's mummy and daddy aren't married anymore, sort of like you and mummy. He said that his daddy loved another girl very very much and now she lives with them. You love Emi so will she live with us now?" Jack looked up at his dad.

"What? I mean… uh. It's more complicated than that." Hotch awkwardly answered.

"But we read a book in class for Valentine's Day," Jack pronounced Valentine's interestingly, clearly unsure. "And it said that love is simple and if you love someone you have to tell them."

"That's right." Hotch nodded.

"Well, I love you, daddy. And you love Emi."

"I also love you."

"But you love her so you can tell her. Can I wake her up?" Jack leaned over her. Emily felt his breath and tried not to smile.

"No, you can't Jack. She needs to sleep." Hotch quickly said, pulling his son away from her.

Jack pouted. "Please?"

"No. How about you go with Auntie Jessie to get some ice cream? And then you can come back as soon as she's awake?" Hotch suggested.

Jack thought about it for a second. "Okay. Can I get sprinkles?"

"Of course. Say goodbye to Emily."

"Bye-bye Emi." Jack leaned over and planted a big kiss on her cheek. "I hope that the bad man who did this is sent away for a long time. I love you." 

Emily couldn't resist it anymore, the little boy was too sweet. She slowly opened her eyes, making a show of waking up. She blinked. Jack's face lit up, his blonde hair longer than last time she'd seen him. "Hi Jack," she croaked out, smiling carefully at him.

Jack jumped up and down with excitement. "Emi! You're awake!"

"Of course. Your daddy looked after me really well. He's a superhero." Emily smiled at Jack, lifting her hand to brush his hair.

"I know. He promised he wouldn't let anyone hurt you but someone did." Jack said sadly.

"But I'm okay now because your daddy saved me," Emily whispered, trying to lighten the mood. She glanced up for a second but Hotch's expression was impossible to read. "I'm very lucky."

Jack nodded. "Can I hug you?"

"Of course." Emily nodded, smiling at him.

Hotch butted in. "Maybe later, Jack, but you need to sleep and Jack might disturb your stitches."

Emily looked up at him, her eyes pleading. "Please, Hotch? He can lay here." She patted the bed on the opposite side of her to the stitches. Hotch could tell she needed this so he sighed and picked up his son, placing him on the bed beside Emily. 

He curled up against her side as she wrapped his arms around him and they both shut their eyes. Hotch watched them for a moment, surveying the scene. Jack missed his mum, he knew that. But since Haley's death, Emily had begun to fill that role. She'd come to his soccer games with JJ and tease Hotch's coaching style. Her and Garcia would dote over the small boy, buying him gifts whenever they felt like it. Morgan and Emily kidnapped him from Hotch's grasp to run down to the river and swim, Hotch's and Morgan in their shorts and Emily in her sports bra and shorts. Rossi taught Emily to cook and she'd started barging into the Hotchner household on random nights so that they’d both get a more nutritious meal than Hotch's world-famous mac and cheese. She'd never replace Haley, she'd never be Jack's mum, but she cared enough and that was good enough for Jack. And Hotch. He was happy to have her there. Anytime.

“C’mon, Hotch,” Emily whispered, reaching out with the hand that wasn’t wrapped around Jack.

Hotch raised an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“Sit down.” she murmured.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. Something he’d learned early, back when he worked with her mother: don’t argue with Emily Prentiss. And a new edition to that: don’t argue with Emily Prentiss when she was lying in a hospital bed connected to an IV drip. She shifted to the side a bit so that he could sit more comfortably and then reached for his hand. He clutched it tightly. Jack was right. He’d promised to keep her safe, but it had only gotten her in even more danger. He tried to close his eyes to distract himself but all he saw was her tied to that chair, the knife to her throat and Alessio’s hands straying. The desperate look in her eyes and then the lifeless way she’d slumped out of the chair haunted him. He squeezed her hand tightly and then opened his eyes to look at her, more to reassure himself that she was really okay.

She squeezed his hand back and then opened her eyes to look up at him. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

Hotch swallowed. He could have denied it but he was feeling vulnerable and was starting to realise that if he didn’t act now, he might never have a chance. “He could have killed you.”

“But he didn’t.” Emily’s eyes were calm, her voice keeping his thoughts at bay. “Why? Because you saved me. You always save me Hotch.”

“But I save you after I get you in danger in the first place. One day I won’t be able to save you… I don’t know what I’ll do.” His voice sounded helpless, and if it wasn’t for the IV drip and the stitches and the bruising and the small boy curled up to her, she would have kissed him then and there. But she couldn’t. She didn’t.

“Hotch, please. Aaron. Don’t think like that. It’s over now.” Emily whispered, her eyes slightly teary.

_ It’s over now. _

He’d never again get to see her before she’d had her coffee, her hair messy and her eyes sleepy. He’d forget how she’d fall asleep wherever she happened to be, the lounge, the bed, the car, even the kitchen table at one point. The way she’d giggle as she danced along to the radio while she cooked them a dodgy dinner (Rossi’s recipes, of course) in thick woollen socks would become a distant memory. The effortless way she curled her hair, the way she’d always forget exactly what she dragged him into the shops for in the first place, the way she’d meet him down by the beach. Gone. He couldn’t help but want that. All the time. Every day for the rest of his life. 

“Yeah. It is. Try to sleep, Em.” He stroked her hair with his free hand and she hummed contently, kissing Jack’s forehead. He seemed to already be asleep. No surprises there.

They stayed that way for a while. Jack curled up against Emily, the two of them fast asleep while the monitors beeped. Hotch sat on the bed next to them, one hand holding hers and the other stroking her hair. Emily’s heart monitor beeped at even intervals, filling the otherwise silent room.

The moment was broken when JJ appeared at the door with a man Hotch had never seen before. He looked authoritative, his black hair close-cropped and his suit pristine. JJ saw the scene and smiled affectionately, before poking her head in and beckoning Hotch out quietly.

Hotch frowned but carefully moved off the bed, trying not to wake them. When he tried to free his hand from Emily’s she gripped it tighter, pouting.

Hotch turned back to her. “I’ll be back, I promise. Look after Jack.” Emily hesitated before nodding and letting go of his hand. Hotch seized the moment and pressed a quick kiss to her temple, conscious of JJ and the other man watching through the window.

“Yes?” Hotch said as soon as he was out of the room, keen to go back to Emily soon.

“This is Agent Cleaton. He’s in charge of running lots of undercover operations for the FBI, including you and Emily’s.” JJ introduced them.

“Agent Hotchner. Excellent work.” Agent Cleaton shook Hotch’s hand.

“Thank you, sir,” Hotch replied.

“Agent Prentiss will be alright?” Cleaton asked, peering through the window at the sleeping woman.

“Luckily, it was a close call. A few moments later and she might have… not been here.” JJ frowned, clearly as unable as Hotch to imagine a world without Emily. They were best friends, they relied on each other.

Hotch cleared his throat. "What can I do for you, Sir?"

"You need to be back in Washington by six this evening, you need to be debriefed as quickly as possible so that the suspects can be convicted. If you leave in half an hour you should be able to get back with half an hour to spare. There will be someone coming down to debrief Agent Prentiss soon."

"Soon? She's in a hospital bed, for Christ's sake." Hotch fixed the agent with his best death glare. He shouldn't be angry with a superior agent but his…  _ friend _ was lying in a hospital connected to an IV drip. FBI debriefings were long and needed to be detailed hence why they usually refrained from debriefing hospital patients.

"We need your statements and evidence quickly, Agent Hotchner." Cleaton eyed him, not fazed.

"I'm not leaving this hospital until she can," Hotch muttered.

"Hotch-" JJ attempted.

"Not now, JJ." Hotch brushed her off, his mind set. She brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes but didn't say anything else.

"I don't make the rules but you follow them." Cleaton glared.

"Not today I don't."

"Strauss will hear about this." 

"See if I care." Hotch knew he was being unreasonable but Emily could have died and he was frustrated that he hadn't been able to help her. He turned around and walked back into the hospital room, leaving Cleaton and JJ to stare at his back.

Emily seemed to be asleep again, one hand in Jack's blonde hair, so Hotch sat on the chair beside the bed. He reached out and took her hand, forgetting all about the people outside and focusing all of his attention on the girl he loved.

"It's not your fault." She murmured, her eyes still shut and her voice barely audible. Hotch stayed silent. "I followed the girls on my own, I didn't think about the fact that they were suspects as well, I wasn't concentrating on anything else." Her voice was raspy and she coughed.

"Hey, hey." Within a second, Hotch was sitting on the side of her bed, moving her hair back from her face. "Ssh. Relax, try to sleep. I'm going to stay right here. You're safe."

"It's my fault."

"You're safe," Hotch said again, running his thumb over her hand reassuringly as she nodded and shut her eyes.

* * *

"He really cares about her," Rossi stated, watching through the hospital room door.

"Yeah. She cares about him too." JJ nodded in agreement, her hands wrapped around her chest.

"You would have thought that this whole debacle would have made them realise that." Rossi's voice was exasperated.

"At this point, I doubt anything will help," JJ said dryly. Rossi laughed.

Reid walked up to the pair. "Is Emily still okay?"

"Yep. We're just talking about that." JJ pointed between the two adults in the hospital room.

"Emily and Hotch? What about them?" Rossi face-palmed at the genius' obliviousness.

"The chemistry? The sexual tension?" Reid's face was still blank.

"The fact that they're obviously in love with each other?" JJ said bluntly, her eyebrows raised incredulously.

"Huh? Really? How do you know?" Reid looked shocked.

"Again, the chemistry, the tension? How did you miss it?! I think even Strauss knows at this point." Rossi rolled his eyes.

"Office relationships are quite common." Reid peered at them.

"But at the FBI they're frowned upon. Trust me, I know from experience." Rossi pulled a face.

JJ rolled her eyes. "Please, everyone knows you're literally the reason the fraternization rules were invented. Besides, you guys didn't see how he talked to Agent Cleaton just then. Where Emily's concerned, I don't think he's worried about breaking a few rules…"

* * *

_ One week later _

_ Washington D.C _

Emily wrapped her ankle around the leg of the metal chair, one finger fidgeting with her hair. The older FBI agent sat across from her, running a hand through his grey hair. Other than them, the room was cold and empty. “So tell me, Agent Prentiss. What happened after the suspect tied you up?”

Emily cleared her throat, her jacket collar brushing against the stitches on her neck. “He taunted me, trying to get me to tell him the identity of Aar- Agent Hotchner. He kept threatening me with the knife and cutting into my neck.” Her eyes flicked to the door where the only window was. Hotch watched through with Rossi and some other agents. He didn’t look very impressed but the fact that he was there calmed her. 

“Do you know how they knew you were FBI?”

“No.”

“We have people looking into it now, it was probably just a leak by someone from the field office. Word spreads quickly in those parts.” the agent wrote something down on a piece of paper. “What happened next?”

“I attempted to reason with him but he went to… to touch me. Agent Hotchner came in then.”

“He didn’t touch you?” The grey agent asked, writing quickly. Hotch’s expression through the glass was angry. Emily knew he was still thinking about what might have happened if he hadn’t come in when he did.

“Not in that way. He wanted to.”

“What were the other suspects doing?”

“Nothing. They just stood there. One of them, Lucas Mitchell, told Alessio to kill me. He said that, uh, he didn’t have time to wait around while Alessio flirted with a slut.” Emily tried to say it more quietly so that Hotch didn’t hear from outside but a quick glance told her that he had. He looked even angrier than before and she half expected him to barge in. Rossi put his hand on Hotch’s shoulder, clearly expecting the same thing as Emily. He didn’t look very impressed either.

“What did Agent Hotchner do?”

“He told Alessio to let go of me. Alessio cut my neck again, deeper. Agent Hotchner tried to reason with him but then when he moved to slit my throat Agent Hotchner shot him in the leg. It surprised him enough that he dropped the knife. The cops came and I woke up in the hospital.” Her mouth felt dry.

The agent in front of her nodded. “Anything else at all that you can remember?” Emily shook her head. “Okay. You can go now, thank you, Agent Prentiss. Good job.”

“Thank you.” Emily quietly said as she stood up, her hand unconsciously coming up to touch the bandages on her neck. Her wrists and ankles were also bandaged, and there was one across her stomach, as well as her neck. The bump on the back of her head was extremely painful as well.

“Are you okay?” Was all Hotch asked as she walked out. The other FBI agents had disappeared back to work but the BAU members remained, JJ walking over with Morgan, Garcia and Reid as they spoke.

She nodded. “I will be.”

“I can drive you home.” JJ offered. “It’s on my way and you must be tired.” 

Emily nodded. “That will be great, thanks Jayje.” What she didn’t say was that all she wanted to do was go back to their tiny apartment in Hazel Beach and fall asleep with Hotch beside her, calming her when she needed it.

“I’ll drive you to work tomorrow, Princess.” Morgan looked concerned. He treated all the girls like his sisters and was fiercely protective over them. “We can pick up the genius boy so he doesn’t need to get the subway.”

“Hey, I’m perfectly capable of getting the subway.” Reid pouted. “Emily, you and Hotch gave the perfect amount of evidence so now Alessio and at least Lucas and Teagan will be jailed, they are the only ones over 18. The others will go to juvie for the time being.”

“They didn’t know what they were doing.” Garcia looked horrified at the idea of Justin in particular, going to jail. According to the rest of the team, she’d become protective from afar of him.

“They still did it. They had a choice and they made it.” Rossi said and JJ nodded sadly.

“Let’s go, Em. You deserve some time to relax. Hotch, Rossi will drop you home.”

“I will? I mean, I will.” Rossi quickly corrected himself as JJ, Garcia and Emily all glared at him. “Let’s go, Hotch.”

“See you guys tomorrow,” Hotch said, his face blank but his eyes trained on Emily. She smiled slightly and he nodded, looking a bit more relaxed at the confirmation that she was okay, before turning to follow Rossi out.

* * *

“Sleep in tomorrow, Em. Call Morgan when you’re awake and he’ll come pick you up.” JJ said as she stood up from the lounge, brushing off her jeans and taking her plate to the kitchen.

Emily thoughtfully chewed on a bit of carrot from the salad. “You're just giving Morgan the excuse he needs to be late."

"Stop it, he's picking you up whether you like it or not. It's like how you insisted on driving Hotch after the Foyet debacle." JJ raised her eyebrows at her friend.

Emily scoffed, rolling her eyes. "That's different."

"Only 'cause you're in love with him," JJ smirked.

"That's not true!"

"Sure. I'll see you tomorrow, sleep well." The blonde walked towards the door. 

Emily stood up stretched, following her towards the door. "Bye, Jayje. I missed hanging out with you." 

JJ reached over and hugged Emily. "I missed you too, but I bet you miss Hotch even more."

"Yeah." Emily gave up on hiding it and sighed. JJ knew her too well. "I do. But enough of thinking about that. Goodnight, drive safely."

"See ya, Em." JJ disappeared through the door and Emily shut it carefully behind her. 

She cleaned the kitchen slowly and carefully, feeling lonely for the first time in a long time. Clearly living with someone else for a while had taken a toll on her. If she thought about it enough she could still remember the way he'd laughed at her for crying during sad movies and then wrapped his arm around her for the rest of it. They'd been stuck in their own fairytale, they didn't pay enough attention to the reason they were there. They let themselves be distracted by seeing each other in a different light. And it had ended with her in a hospital bed

_ Maybe if things were different. _

A knock on her door startled her and she walked over, exasperated but smiling. "JJ, I swear to God, if you left your keys or phone up here as per usual, I'm actually going to-" she opened the door quickly and then paused and blinked in surprise when she saw who it was. "Oh. Hi."

"Hi," Hotch responded, his eyes meeting hers. 

She swallowed, tucking her hair behind her ears and dropping her eyes to the floor for a moment, suddenly nervous. "Uh. Do you want to come in?"

"Thanks." He muttered, stepping past her and into the corridor while she shut the door slowly behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the longest chapter I've written for this story so appreciate that lmao


	11. Part 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this chapter sort of jumps around a bit :\

_ Monday. _

“So, JJ, spill.” Emily sipped her coffee and grinned across the table at her blonde friend. “What’s the goss? What did I miss? I was gone awhile and so far I haven’t heard any fraternization rumours, dumb things Reid did, dumb things Garcia did, dumb things Rossi did… you know.”

“Why am I not surprised that that is your first concern coming back from undercover.” JJ rolled her eyes but a grin was still prominent on her face.

“Hey, you know that would be your first concern as well.” Emily raised her eyebrows knowingly.

JJ shook her head in exasperation. “Whatever. Who do you want to know about?”

“Hm. Morgan first.”

“Him and Garcia got dobbed in by Agent Criswell and sent to another three sexual harassment meetings in the time you were gone.”

Emily snorted. “Why does that not even surprise me.”

“Hello, my pretties. What are we talking about?” The woman in question suddenly appeared, her bright pink dress constantly contrasting against the blacks and greys of the FBI bullpen. 

“Everything Em missed out on.” 

“Ooh, sweetie you don’t even know. Rossi was about this close-” Garcia held up her fingers less than a centimetre away from each other. “-to asking that agent, Redfield or whatever, you know, the one who was running your op from the Hazel Beach end of things, out. But then, of course, the op ended so now he’ll never see her again.” she shrugged.

“That sly man. He truly is the reason fraternization is a problem at the BAU.” Emily shook her head in disbelief.

“Uh-huh. Oh, and now for the most important bit. JJ,” Garcia sang her friend's name, winking at her.

“Oh no. Emily, don't believe anything she says.” JJ bit her lip.

“Well, now I’m interested. Penelope, tell me  _ everything. _ ” Emily grinned.

“Well. So, this guy met JJ in a coffee shop and they spoke a little and then JJ came here, but she forgot her wallet. Anyway, he came by to give it back and he was talking to JJ and then Reid made up a really dumb excuse to get JJ away, what was it again?”

JJ rolled her eyes. “He told me that he’d messed up his paperwork and needed a new sheet.”

Emily gasped mockingly. “But… but Reid never messes up his paperwork!”

JJ poked her tongue out at her. “Cute, Prentiss.”

“And then, it gets better, my bilingual angel, we were at a bar and this guy asked JJ to dance and she was going to say yes but then the genius boy interrupted and said he was already going to dance with her so then  _ he actually danced! _ ” Garcia whispered that last bit, JJ’s cheeks quickly turning the same shade as Garcia’s dress.

“No!”

“Yes! And then they almost kissed!”

“No!

“Yes!

“JJ is this true?!”

JJ’s face was buried in her hands. “... maybe.”

“Oh my gosh, what happened?!”

“The guy interrupted!” Garcia cried.

“Seriously! Dude, get the message. She’s not into you!” Emily cried. “Jayje, that sucks.”

“I know.” JJ pouted.

“Alright, how about you, Em-kins? As JJ said the other day, what’s been happening in that one-bed house of yours.” Garcia wiggled her eyebrows.

“Um-”

“Oh my gosh, something happened!” JJ put down her coffee, excitedly listening.

“Nothing happened at the house. Nothing major, I mean. A few times I fell asleep on his shoulder and stuff but nothing big.” Emily blushed.

“Aw,” JJ smiled.

“If you fell asleep on the couch, did he find you a blanket?” Garcia interrogated.

“Yes.”

“He’s a keeper,” Garcia said while JJ nodded.

“Yeah.”

JJ held up her hand. “Hold on. You hesitated before. Something must have happened.”

Emily bit her lip. “Um…”

“Oh my gosh, spill.”

“You’re hesitating again!”

“Last night…” Emily faltered again.

“Out with it!”

“Last night he kissed me.”

* * *

_ The previous night. _

"JJ, I swear to God, if you left your keys or phone up here as per usual, I'm actually going to-" she opened the door quickly and then paused and blinked in surprise when she saw who it was. "Oh. Hi."

"Hi," Hotch responded, his eyes meeting hers. 

She swallowed, tucking her hair behind her ears and dropping her eyes to the floor for a moment, suddenly nervous. "Uh. Do you want to come in?"

"Thanks." He muttered, stepping past her and into the corridor while she shut the door slowly behind him.

“So, uh. What’s up?” Emily asked, following him to her main room.

“Nothing really. I just, um. I just wanted to see you. I miss having you around.” He mumbled the last bit. She barely heard it but still had to bite her lip to stop her smile.

“Yeah. JJ just left and I was thinking about how quiet it is.” Emily laughed quietly, trying to magic the awkwardness away. It didn’t work.

“Yeah. Jack’s at a friends house tonight, Jessica organised it a while ago. I mean, it would have been nice to spend time with him but he was so excited about the sleepover that I couldn’t make him cancel it.” Hotch smiled.

Emily smiled affectionately as well. She knew how much of a pushover Hotch was when it came to Jack. That boy had him wrapped around his finger. “Well, there is always another night for the Hotchner boys to catch up.” Hotch nodded and then the silence was back. “Do you want to watch a movie?” Emily asked after a moment.

“Uh, yeah. Okay. That would be great. Sorry for just barging in.” 

“No, it’s fine. Come sit.”

They’d ended up watching an old romantic comedy that Emily couldn’t quite remember the name of. It was warm and cosy. They weren’t touching, but just knowing that he was there was enough. At some point, Emily had turned to look at him to find his eyes fixed on her. He didn’t look away, his eyes staring into hers. She swallowed but didn't look away either. The electricity crackled between them and then suddenly his mouth was hot on hers, one hand on her waist and one on her back, pulling her close to his. She didn't pull away, couldn't, not when it felt so right. Her hands found his neck and she pulled gently on the curls there, smiling against his mouth at the small groan that he released. His mouth knew what to do and before she even knew what was happening, she was straddling his legs and his hands were all over her.

But it was all over too soon.

It was all over too soon as his tongue did distracting things to her mouth and the hand on its way from cupping her cheek brushed the bandage on her neck, previously hidden under the jacket. He flinched back like he had been burnt, his eyes flying open as his hands grabbed the lounge on either side of him. “Oh God.” he muttered.

“What?” Emily asked, out of breath but confused.

“We can’t do this. I can’t do this.” Hotch looked stressed, his eyes panicked as he didn’t look at her.

Emily bit her lip, still awkwardly straddling him. “Why?” her voice sounded weak, defeated, even to her own ears.

“Because. I’m sorry,” his eyes were fixated on her bandage again. “I only hurt you.”

Her heart broke right then and there. “Hotch-”

“No. I can’t.” 

She knew he blamed himself for Elle, and for Gideon, and he blamed himself more than JJ blamed herself for Reid’s kidnap, but also for Haley and now, for Emily. It was too much weight for one person to carry by themselves. Especially when none of it was his fault and he didn’t deserve it.

“Hotch, please. Listen, none of this is your fault, I followed Lilliana and Teagan all by myself-”

“I’m sorry, Emily.” he muttered, moving to stand up as she shifted off his lap, the moment over. He headed for the door, leaving her tired and heartbroken on the lounge. “I really am.”

* * *

_ Tuesday. _

He still hadn’t said anything.

He avoided eye contact, sent Reid to grab her paperwork so that she didn’t have to bring it up to him. Emily couldn’t handle the sympathetic looks from Garcia and JJ or the confused looks from Rossi, Reid and Morgan. 

Rossi had come up to her after she had run out of a meeting midway through, claiming she forgot to do something. Most of the team saw through her, but she couldn’t deal with the blank look on Hotch’s face. Not after they’d come through so much. She was moodily brewing a cup of tea when she finally gave up on ignoring Rossi, who was standing next to her, watching and waiting for her to speak up. “What is it, Dave?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Rossi's eyes analysed her.

“I’m fine. I just, uh-”

“Forgot to make yourself a coffee? You’re fairly transparent, bella.” Rossi smirked.

“I just needed out.” Rossi always understood, he never pressed her.

“What happened to you and Aaron? If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna start guessing.” she didn’t say anything, her full attention apparently focused on adding sugar into her coffee. “I’m guessing… judging by your body language, Aaron came to your apartment on Sunday night, things got a bit hot and heavy but then Aaron ran out claiming that he couldn’t get involved with you because he didn’t want you to get hurt like Haley.”

Emily gawked at him. “You got all that off my  _ body language? _ ” her tone was skeptical.

Rossi nodded. “You angled your body 29.572° away from Aaron during the monday morning meeting which means that…” he trailed off at her expression which clearly said she did not believe him. “Aaron told me.”

Emily’s eyes picked up. “What did he say? Did he tell you anything else?”

“He said to tell you he wishes things could be different. And he’s sorry.”

Emily scowled, turning away back to her tea. “Yeah, he mentioned that a few hundred times.” she muttered, annoyed. 

“Emily-”

The annoyance disappeared as quickly as it had come and soon, Emily found herself wiping tears she didn’t know were waiting to fall. Rossi wrapped an arm around her, murmuring reassuring things to her in Italian.

“He loves you, bella.”

“Yeah right, fat lot of good hearing that it.”

They went back to the meeting a few minutes later, when Emily had calmed down and fixed her makeup, slipping back in without offering up an explanation.

If Hotch noticed she’d been crying, he didn’t say anything.

* * *

_ Thursday _

“Aaron, you can’t keep doing this to Emily.” Hotch sighed as Rossi barged his way into the office, shutting the door behind him.

“Doing what, Dave?”

“Ignoring her. Pretending you two didn’t legit just spend ages in an apartment together posing as a couple. Refusing to admit your feelings. Making her cry.” Rossi's gaze was stern.

Hotch’s head looked up at that. “What?”

“Yes, you do have feelings and everyone knows that you feel emotions-”

“No, the bit about her crying.” he bit his lip. “Did I really make her cry? I didn’t mean to, I never wanted her to get hurt-”

Rossi groaned, extremely exasperated. “Okay, Aaron, here’s the first rule of girls. They have feelings too, so respect them. For example, if there is a girl you like and the two of you have to go undercover together as a couple and you fall in love with each other a little bit more and the sexual tension builds up until finally when the op is over you go to her apartment and make out with her but then bail and leave when things are just starting to get good, it’s highly likely she will  _ cry. _ ” Rossi deadpanned.

Hotch’s expression went back to being neutral. “That’s not what happened.”

“Really? Well, do tell me, what really happened? Because that is what Emily thinks happened.” Hotch was extremely oblivious.

“She said she loved me?”

Rossi groaned again. “You’re getting the wrong message here!”

“Right. Sorry. But… look at what happened to Haley. I’m worried enough about Jack, what would happen if Emily was added into the equation?” Hotch wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Aaron, listen. Emily can fend for herself, I know that you’re one of those men who want to protect their female at all costs, but she is strong, she will probably be as worried about you as you are for her.”

“But…” Hotch swallowed. “What about Jack, as well. He needs someone stable, someone who doesn’t have my job, my unpredictable hours, my nightmares. Someone who isn’t scarred by everything they’ve seen.” 

“Jack loves Emily. The other day I looked after him so Jessica could have some alone time and he asked when you were going to marry Emily, and he effectively said that you have his blessing. I mean sure, he doesn’t really understand the concept of dating but he can see how much she means to you. He doesn’t need someone to be the perfect mum for him. He wants another superhero like his daddy.”

Hotch couldn’t stop the smile gracing his face. “He really said that?”

“Uh-huh. None of this is Emily’s fault, so stop punishing her.”

“I’m not punishing her. I’m protecting her.”

“And she doesn’t want that, so stop it.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment before Hotch sighed. “You can’t change my mind, Dave.”

Rossi watched him, saw the pain clear in Hotch’s eyes as he turned back to the paperwork. “If I had a dime for how many relationship’s I’d ruined by trying to  _ protect  _ someone, I’d be the richest person on the planet. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. It’s not worth it.”

He left the room and Hotch stayed there in silence, watching Emily talk to Reid and Morgan out his window. “Trust me, I know.”

* * *

_ Friday _

“We have a case, JJ wants us all in there for a briefing.” Garcia walked past Reid, Morgan and Emily’s desks.

“Alright, lets go. Pretty boy, princess, hurry up.”

“Stop calling me that,” Reid whined, sculking past him.

“No way. Hey, Prentiss,” Morgan laid a hand on his friend's arm as she followed Reid.

“Yeah?” Emily peered at him. “Whats up?” 

“Nothing. Just… I know you have stuff going on.” Emily looked away. “If you ever need to talk, I’m here.” she tried to pull away but he gripped her arm more tightly. “Okay?”

“Yeah.” she sighed before looking at him again. “Thanks Derek.”

“Not a problem. Now hurry up, stop making me late for meetings.”

Emily rolled her eyes as she walked in and sat down. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Why’s Morgan unbelievable?” Reid asked.

JJ laughed. “When isn’t he?” Emily high fived her, a grin on her face. 

Hotch and Rossi walked in then, taking the last two empty seats, Hotch next to Emily. She didn’t look up at him. “Okay, JJ, what’s the case?”

“Missing women in Los Angeles. So far 7 of them in the past three days, all blonde, mid twenties, athletic.”

“Seven women? Why were we only just called in?” Hotch asked.

“LAPD wasn’t sure that they were connected, they each died of a different thing. One was asphyxiation, one was shot, one stabbed, one drowned… the list goes on.” JJ looked around the room, the entire room concentrated on the case now.

“So why do they think it is connected?” Rossi asked.

“Each victim-”

“-was missing their top left tooth. Could be a satanic cult of some sorts?” Reid figured it out before everyone else, as usual.

JJ rolled her eyes but the affection was clear. “Spence’s right. That was the only constant at each crime scene, other than the victimology.”

“It could be a group of people.” Emily murmured. 

“That would explain the different deaths but the same calling card.” Morgan nodded.

Hotch frowned, taking a folder from the stack Rossi was passing around. “We should get going, they’re clearly evolving.” His hand brushed Emily’s when he handed her the folders to take one. Their eyes connected for a moment before he looked away again. They both ignored the spark.

“Wheels up in thirty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter! If you have any ideas for one-shots or multi chapters, or just want to chat, find me on my tumblr baureid :))


	12. Part 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm completely sorry I forgot that I hadn't posted the last chapter of this 😖 enjoy this last chapter y'all

Droplets of rain slid down the car window, the wind outside cold but the heat inside warm. The black SUV drove down the highway away from DC, heading towards the town that Emily had called home for the past weeks. Morgan tapped his hands on the wheel in time to the music, in a good mood despite the gloomy weather, but from the passenger seat of the otherwise empty car all Emily could think about was how this was the end of something. Soon it would just be a distant memory.

They only had today to clean up their apartment, to flush away any last remains of the time they had spent together, the life they both wanted but didn’t have. Emily could easily think of thousands of things she’d rather be doing. If only she hadn’t said yes to the brass when they asked if she’d be interested, she would have bandages around her wrists or a  _ broken heart _ . But of course, she had said yes. Because the pull to spend time with Hotch had been too strong.

“What’s wrong, Prentiss?” 

Emily lifted her head off the window as Morgan spoke up. “Nothing.” 

Hotch was meeting her at the apartment later, she’d agreed to start without him so that he could take Jack to school and then come down. Morgan was driving her out there and then visiting an old friend in a nearby town, staying the night, and coming back to the next day. Emily would drive back with Hotch. That totally wouldn’t be awkward…

“You can tell me, Emily.” Morgan tried again.

Emily sighed, giving in. She trusted him. “It’s just Hotch.”

Morgan nodded thoughtfully, happy that he finally got a straight answer out of her. “Yeah. I mean, clearly, he’s in love with you but the question now is will he ever act on it.”

Emily blinked. "Hold on, back up a moment. What was that?"

Morgan looked at her curiously. "Will he ever act on his feelings?"

"No, the bit before that."

"Um, you can tell me anything?"

"No, after that."

Morgan raised an eyebrow at her. "He loves you?"

"Yep, that." Emily looked away.

"What, you didn't know that? Princess, he's loved you for ages." Morgan smirked.

"I don't think so." Emily smiled.

"When you were kidnapped by Alessio and their gang, Hotch was so worried. You didn't show and then you didn't pick up your phone and Hotch panicked, he called Garcia from his cell which you know neither of you were meant to do. The whole time you were in hospital he barely left your side, your comfort and safety was his top priority. Now, don't ever think he's going to let you out of his sight again, that boy is crazy for you." Morgan grinned.

"Yeah well, he's been ignoring me since he kissed me." Emily frowned.

"Ha, he kissed you? Rossi owes me a lot of money, he thought that you and Hotch would stay oblivious forever." Morgan triumphantly stated. He saw her glare and amended it. "Look, I can guarantee that that is part of his way of protecting you, he's weird like that."

"Great. Why, of all the people, did I pick him?" Emily rolled her eyes, muttering it under her breath.

Morgan looked at her. "Because you know he's the one. And he'll always worry and try to protect you."

* * *

_ Months earlier [ post minimal loss ] _

"Prentiss!" Hotch called, walking quickly up the path towards her. Fires surrounded the old building and people ran around madly trying to make sure that everyone was safe and accounted for. Emily had stumbled out earlier and then tried to get back in, worriedly trying to find Morgan and Reid. They came out and Emily threw her arms around Reid's neck and his hands wrapped around her waist, holding him close to her. Neither of them were crying, they were trying to be professional, but the relief that they'd both come out alive was clear in their eyes.

Emily pulled back from Reid, ruffling his hair affectionately. He pulled a face at her, but the relief was still clear as he walked off with Morgan. Emily turned to Hotch, slowly walking down towards him. He watched her, his eyes tracing the bruises down her cheeks, her ruffled hair and the slight way she limped. He hesitated before walking towards her. She stopped in front of him and cautiously looked up at him, waiting for him to reprimand her about claiming to be the only FBI agent to spare Reid or for not calling in the rest of the BAU when she was getting beaten up.

His eyes were glued to the bruising across her left cheek. 

"I'm okay, Hotch." She put it out there. He looked at her. It was obvious he didn't believe her.

"I had to listen to you get beaten up." He muttered.

"I'm sorry," Emily whispered back.

"It's not your fault. It's the furthest possible thing from your fault." Hotch told her, his hands reaching to grab her and pull her close to him. She froze for a moment before reciprocating the hug, tucking her head into the crook of his neck as her arms wrapped tightly around his back. She was crying now but barely, her face hidden and her sobs quiet as she tried to hide it from him. It only made him even more protective of her, his hands rubbing up and down her back as she held him there, one of her hands snaking forward to grab the front of his shirt and hold it still in her hand, needing something to hold onto.

"It's okay." He murmured into her hair. She seemed to calm down after that, her breathing evening out. He began to suspect after a while that she was simply staying there due to some embarrassment at him having clearly sensed her crying.

"I couldn't stand listening to you get hit." He said after a moment or two, his voice low and clearly affected by what he heard through the comms.

"I'm sorry." She murmured.

"It's not your fault." His hand came up to hold the back of her head, to hold her closer still to him.

She flinched though and turned her head away from his hand. "Sorry," Emily muttered, embarrassed when she realised what she had done.

Hotch moved his hand back from her head and peered at his fingers. There was some blood, mostly dried but still there. "Emily." He muttered, concern clear in his voice.

"I'm fine, Hotch." She replied, her chin up high again. She tried to move away but he reached one hand out to keep her there, his hand on her waist. She flinched again but this time it was barely noticeable, he wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been trying to gauge where she was injured. Sure, he had heard her being beaten up but he'd never seen where she was injured. 

"Emily." He repeated again, this time his voice a little firmer. She stopped trying to move away. "What did he do to you?" 

"Nothing. He just hit me a few times, nothing that won't heal itself." Emily said lightly. She never liked seeming injured, the unintentional profile that Hotch had done on her told him that it was because she didn't like seeming weak, especially in such a male-dominated workforce.

"I need to know where you're injured. Where else are you hurt?" He asked again, more quietly so the people around him didn't overhear. She didn't say anything so Hotch got to work filling in the blanks. She held herself carefully, flinching when people jostled her on their way past. She'd flinched when he grabbed her waist. His hand was still there. He cautiously pressed his index fingers into the skin above her hip and watched her breath in deeply. She was clearly trying hard not to give any more obvious tells. 

Hotch held her eye contact as his hand fingered the hem of her shirt. Emily didn't say anything. He looked over his shoulder and then, judging that everyone was preoccupied, he took a step towards her and slowly lifted the hem of her blouse, lifting it to the bottom of her bra. She bit her lip as he breathed in deeply, the purple bruise wrapping around her stomach and onto her back. Emily stared over his shoulder while his fingers examined the occasional cut on her stomach, her eyes flicking over the people around her. It didn't go unnoticed by her the way that he effectively blocked her body from the surrounding crowds, giving her some privacy.

"Em." He said, straightening up. He didn't seem to notice that he still held the hem of her shirt in his hand. He also didn't seem to notice his use of the pet name that only Penelope or JJ really seemed to use. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Emily bit her lip. Her hand found his and pulled it down so that her shirt covered her stomach again. He blinked when he realised and dropped the hem, embarrassed. She sighed. "I didn't want you to worry. Because," she chuckled dryly. "You always do."

"No, I don't."

Emily met his eyes briefly. "Yes, you do. You're always watching me and... Harassing me like you're doing right now." She raised her eyebrows at him.

"I'm not- I don't- Emily, it's my responsibility to make sure you're safe. You can't try and hide all of your injuries. He hit you, your face is bruised all over. He kicked you, your stomach is bruised, he could have even broken a rib. He threw you against some sort of glass-"

"A mirror." Emily corrected half-heartedly.

"He threw you against a mirror, there are cuts all along your arm and your neck. He threw you against a wall, the back of your head is bleeding. Em, this isn't safe. You need to get checked." Hotch finished.

"No. Please don't make me, Hotch." Emily pleaded. "Not in front of all these people."

He reached up and pushed her hair back from her face. "Emily-"

"No. I promise that I'll go to the hospital as soon as Cyrus goes." 

Hotch looked at her. "Why?"

"Because... Because I don't want to seem weak in front of him." She whispered.

"Emily-"

"Stop!" Emily snapped. "Stop." She repeated again, more quietly. He stared at him, his eyes furrowed in confusion. She looked up at him for a second before looking back down again instantly when she saw his expression. "Stop saying my name like that."

"Like what?" Hotch asked.

"Like you care. Like you're worried or something." Emily pulled a face.

"You don't like that I'm worried about you?" Hotch dropped his hand from her face and she took a step back, running her fingers through her hair.

"Yes."

"Why?" Hotch pressed.

"Because... People... people never seem to really care, it's all about them keeping up appearances. Trust me, Hotch," Emily looked up for a moment, holding his gaze. "I've been there." She shrugged and moved to walk past him.

"Hey. Hey, Em- Prentiss." He amended. 

She stopped, shut her eyes and breathed in deeply, clearly annoyed with his worry. "What?"

"I'm not faking it. I don't know who hurt you, or why anyone would want to hurt you, but I do know that you're hurt right now and I'm genuinely worried and want to help." Hotch finished.

Emily seemed frozen. "Prentiss!" Morgan called from across the other side of the makeshift setup. Emily looked up at him. "Come over here, get in this ambulance with Reid, you can go with these kids." Emily nodded slightly and Morgan jumped in the back of another ambulance which then instantly sped off.

Emily bit her lip, a tell that she knew about and tried to hide it but couldn't seem to break when she most needed it. "Hotch." She said softly. "I'm sorry. Look, it really, really, means a lot that you care. Seriously." She spoke slowly, pausing between her sentences. "I'll go to the hospital with those kids, I'll drop them off and then I'll get someone to have a look at me. Just... Please don't..." She trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence.

"Mention your injuries in front of the others?" Hotch guessed. Emily nodded. "Why? Prentiss, they're- we're your family. None of them are ever going to hurt you."

"I know." Emily sighed, a faint smile on her lips as she turned back to him. "But still. I don't like feeling like that. So please, Hotch." 

"Okay. Yeah, I won't say anything. You can trust me." 

Emily smiled properly then, glancing shyly down at the ground. "I know. And I do. So... I'll see you later." She said, and then pulled a face at how awkward she sounded. "Blah. Sorry. Okay bye." She walked off, not leaving him any room to say anything.

"I'm glad you're safe." Hotch quietly said. Emily's brain froze but she forced herself to keep walking. He clearly hadn't intended for her to hear him. But it warmed her heart.

* * *

Opening the door of the apartment, Emily was struck by how the apartment looked exactly the same as all those weeks ago before she left to go down to meet Hotch. So much had happened, so much had changed, but the dishes were still stacked on the side of the sink and a loaf of bread (which on closer inspection was now mouldy) sat beside them.

In the bedroom, her laundry was folded on the chair, a few pairs of her shoes tossed in the back corner of the room. Hotch’s side was clean, that was who he was, the only thing out of place was the polo shirt she had thrown on his bed the morning of the incident that had flipped the operation over.

She looked around, smiling fondly at all the memories. A photo frame sat next to the mirror, the frame plain but the photo colourful. It was one of the photos they’d taken before going undercover, to back up their story. Emily was wearing a patterned red sundress, her hair loose and curled with a white hibiscus flower behind her ear. Hotch wore a white collared shirt. She remembered taking the photo because it had been one of the last ones they’d taken. The backdrop was a sandy beach and their cover story said that it was from their trip to Los Angeles a year after they started dating. Hotch’s hands around her waist had held her back to him and she had her head thrown back while she laughed. He was also laughing, a rarity, but his eyes were focused on her, his chin on her shoulder.  _ If only that could be real _ , Emily thought. But it was just a stupid, fake picture. But that didn’t stop her from slipping it into her bag.

The rest of the apartment was filled with similar memories. The black dress she’d worn to the first gathering with the rest of the people in the apartment held the memory of one of his hands on her waist while the other held her hand and pulled her away from Alessio. The printed out recipe Rossi had sent them for an “easy meal” reminded her of how they had read those instructions about a million times, followed them exactly and still ended up setting the smoke alarm off when they burnt the onions. The lounge that they’d curled up on each night, that she had told him about her past and that she’d seen the parts of him he tried to hide. The blanket he’d wrapped around her before kissing her forehead and going to the bedroom to sleep, not knowing that she wasn’t quite asleep yet and felt him do it.

It just made everything hurt more.

She heard the key in the lock a while later while she was folding all of her clothes up and putting them in boxes. “Emily?”

“I’m in here, Hotch,” Emily called out, sticking her head out of the wardrobe so that he could see her. 

He walked in and went to his clothes, pulling up a box and getting to work. “How long have you been here?”

“I’m not sure, an hour or so. How’s Jack?” Emily tried to fill the silence, not wanting them to shift back into the awkwardness.

“He’s good. Happy that I’m back. He’s also, uh, glad that you’re okay. He wants you to come over for dinner soon if you’re interested.” Hotch glanced up at her for a moment but when she raised her eyes to meet his he looked away.

“Of course. You know I love him, I’d love to see him.” the unsaid parts of that sentence lingered in the air between them.  _ I love you too.  _ Hotch nodded and turned away, continuing with unpacking.

The awkwardness resumed. Like it had ever left…

Emily chewed her lip as she watched him from her side of the bed. Each time he looked up she’d look away, pretending she was really interested in packing up all the keepsakes. Another photo of them, one she’d felt daring when the photographer took it all those weeks ago. The Eiffel Tower and Paris city lights in the background were unimportant as she stood behind him, her head over his shoulder and her lips pressed to his cheek. He looked lovestruck and she looked happy. If only they’d known what effect this case would have on their relationship. Maybe she wouldn’t have accepted it.

It was just going to make it harder to walk away, knowing what a life with Hotch could be like.

“I don’t trust easy.”

Her voice interrupted even her own thoughts. It surprised her and from the looks of things, it surprised him as well.

“I’m sorry?”

“But I trusted you.” she continued on as if he hadn’t said anything, her voice gaining confidence. “I told you things that I’ve hardly told anyone, some things I’d never told anyone. And now you’re just ignoring me.” she couldn’t stop her voice from breaking.

He didn’t say anything, but he watched her, his eyes pained. 

“You kissed me. You kissed me, Hotch, and I know that you want to pretend it never happened and move on like it was a mistake and it didn’t mean anything but I don’t want to pretend and it wasn’t a mistake and it meant something to me.”

He looked like he was using every muscle in his body to not say anything. “I’m really sorry, Emily.”

“I don’t want your apologies. I don’t want you to ignore me any longer, Hotch. I’m not a little kid, and I know you’ll probably only ever see me as Elizabeth Prentiss’ daughter who always snuck out of gala’s, but-” she cut off suddenly as it occurred to me. “You know what? Screw it.”

“What?”

“I don’t need you to try and protect me, Hotch,” she whispered as she walked around the bed and then her lips were on his before he could say anything. He couldn’t help it, he kissed her back, his hands dropping the shirt he was holding to grab her waist. His common sense cut through the bliss for a moment and he pulled away, staring at her. 

“Emily-” he looked desperate, sad.

Her heart broke. “I’ll go away if that’s what you really want.”

“I don’t want that.” he whispered, dropping his hands from her waist. “But I can’t-”

“Stop pushing me away, Hotch. I can look after myself. What happened with Haley won’t happen with me, I promise. I want you. I hope you want me. Otherwise this could be a bit awkward.” she laughed awkwardly and instantly started overthinking the situation.

He saw her spiralling and spoke up. “I do want you.”

“Good. Then, uh… let's make this work.” Emily nodded confidently before kissing him deeply. One of his hands came up to cup her neck and he smiled.

“Yes ma’am.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this, thank you so much for reading and commenting xx

**Author's Note:**

> Please please review :))


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